Charity Burbage and the New Prince
by Lion in the Land
Summary: Sequel to "Professor Burbage and the Potions Master."  Charity's entire life changes when she finds out that a part of Snape lives on.  Post Deathly Hallows.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note: **_Charity Burbage and the New Prince_ is the sequel to my fanfiction _Professor Burbage and the Potions Master_. I'll try to write this sequel so that it's not absolutely necessary to read _Potions Master_ first, but that being said…you're probably gonna want to read _Potions Master_ first.

_New Prince_ picks up shortly after_ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_ leaves off. Are you wondering why Charity Burbage is still alive? Well, what did I tell you about reading _Potions Master_ first, hm?

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**Charity Burbage and the New Prince**

**Prologue**

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Hogwarts had never looked so good. The carpenter elves and goblins, working side by side with wizards and witches, had fully restored the castle, aging the new banisters and stonework to maintain the centuries-old patina that was so fitting for this stalwart school of magic. But on this night, the Great Hall carried the gleaming polish of newness. Instead of dim candles floating in the air, glimmering crystal chandeliers provided a soft but brighter glow. Crisp white linens stretched across dozens of round dinner tables laden with lustrous silver, and guests shed their everyday black in favor of electric blues, pale sherbets, and classic ivories. Everything about the room spoke of the anticipation of a promising future.

Elves scurried around the room with their trays of food and drink on their heads, serving witches and wizards as ever, but now the witches and wizard said thank you or at least offered an appreciative smile. The community of magical beings had pulled tightly together in the wake of the long battle against Voldemort, and it looked like relations had been permanently improved. They'd risen from the ashes, just like Dumbledore's Phoenix, and were moving on, stronger than before.

Charity stood at the edge of the dance floor, at the furthest corner from the one rectangular table in the room, the one where the special guests of the evening would be seated. All the efforts to get Hogwarts up and running before the start of the school year hadn't come cheap, and tonight was a celebration to thank the many generous benefactors to the cause—as well as an opportunity to squeeze a few more galleons out of them. Tickets to the event had cost a pretty knut, and the most expensive seats in the house were at that long table.

There would be another guest seated in prominence. A mysterious guest the Ministry had been tight-lipped about, only dropping cryptic hints here and there and insisting that no one would ever be able to guess who it was. Charity assumed it was all just a ploy to create a buzz around the event and up the prestige and value of a ticket, and she hadn't spent a moment of her time wondering which boring foreign dignitary or ancient wizard she'd never heard of it could be.

A year earlier, such an event as this would have been a major highlight in Charity's life. And she was indeed encouraged by the onward movement of the magical community, but even still, she didn't feel quite as ready to move on as everyone around her. She'd lost something of great value to the war, something she didn't expect to ever find again in this world, no matter how vigorously the silverware was buffed. So she mingled and smiled and laughed and all the while wondered how soon she could skip out of the party to massage her aching feet and rest her tired body.

The crystals of the chandeliers began tinkling, signaling that it was time for announcements, and all faces turned toward the head table. Positioned at the center was a portly man in a lime green tuxedo. He rocked back and forth on his feet, alternately rising up on his toes and coming to rest on the back of his heels. The corners of his eyes crinkled at the corners with excitement as he gazed into the crowd. This was Fineas Craybourne, chief of the Ministry of Magic's philanthropic endeavors.

Fineas touched his wand to his throat, increasing the volume of his voice so that all could hear. "Welcome everyone, and thank you for being here this evening. It seemed only fitting to hold this celebration here so that you could all see for yourselves what you made possible. Because of you, these hallowed halls will once again open for the education of our future. I drink to you."

He held up a goblet to the crowd and then took a healthy swig, his gulp amplified. He then thumped the goblet down onto the table and wiped his mouth, revealing a rather mischievous smirk as he pulled his hand away.

"Because of your selfless dedication to this and many other projects, the Ministry has deemed it appropriate that you should be among the first in the wizarding community to be re-introduced to our next guest."

A hush fell over the crowd, and photographers positioned themselves for the best shot. Despite her cynicism toward the surprise guest, Charity's heart beat more heavily than usual against her ribs. It was difficult to not get caught up in the crowd's eagerness for the big reveal.

"At the end of the war, we all thought our next guest dead. Why, we even went so far as to bury him." Fineas let out a good-humored chuckle and a low murmur of reciprocal laughter reverberated throughout the room, everyone apparently finding the thought of burying a man alive to be a pretty good joke. "What we didn't account for at the time was this particular wizard's cunning and infinitely superior knowledge of magical substances and potions."

At the word "potions," Charity froze. All objects between her and Fineas Craybourne dissolved into a blur as she became intently focused on every word that streamed from his mouth.

"He'd been taken by surprise at the Dark Lord's personal attack on him, but he'd known during those crazy times that anything was possible. He also knew that if such a thing were to happen, it would be best to let his attacker think for a time that he was, in fact, dead. And so before setting out to the Battle of Hogwarts, he'd taken, among other precautions, an intricately designed bezoar solution. Once he was poisoned, the solution took effect and preserved his body in a deathlike state for several days, long enough for his enemy to believe him dead."

The murmur that went through the crowd was now one of shock. A very famous wizard had been poisoned at the Battle of Hogwarts.

"Because it's wizard tradition to bury the wand with the body, he knew he'd be able to summon enough strength upon regaining consciousness to get himself out of the tomb when the time came. His strength also carried him to Saint Mungo's, where he's been recuperating in private ever since. I am pleased to tell you that he has made a full recovery and joins us tonight in his first public appearance as a hero. I won't need to remind you that the last time any of us saw him conscious, we thought him our worst enemy, only to find out upon his 'death' that he was our greatest friend.

"Without further ado—ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Severus Snape."

The genteel crowd burst into wild applause as a thin wizard with long, black hair stepped onto the platform behind the table. In contrast to Claybourne's exuberant preening, this wizard's hunched shoulders and harsh scowl made him look as if he'd very much like to climb back into the grave he'd crawled out of. When he came to stand next to Claybourne, who clapped him on the shoulder, his features stood impassive. His stillness, and even the angle at which he held his hooked nose, reminded Charity of the photo she kept of him—encased in a silver frame that this wizard himself had given her.

The only things that moved on him were his charcoal eyes. They flicked all over the room as if searching for something and didn't stop until they landed on Charity. She sucked in a breath and smiled as she watched one corner of his mouth twitch ever so slightly. Then she held that breath, afraid that releasing it would cause him to disappear. She'd seen Snape alive in her dreams nearly every single night since his reported death, and now she was certain that must have been a premonition of sorts, her subconscious always knowing that he was still alive. What she couldn't have predicted was the effect his gaze would have on her, the warmth of it, the serenity with which it filled her.

Claybourne gave Snape's shoulder a shake and said, "Come on old boy, say a few words to your adoring fans." Snape flicked his eyes to look at Claybourne, and Charity felt as if a piece of her had been torn away, leaving a void that quickly filled with coldness.

Snape said his few words to the crowd, thanking them for being there, for all of the kind words they'd said and written about him in his absence. He spoke of the great evil they'd defeated together and cautioned against complaisance, warned them that evil still existed and they had to be vigilant. Never again could they let evil grow to the magnitude of Voldemort's reign. The crowd listened with rapt attention, and when he finished, applauded. It wasn't a perfunctory applause given out of politeness or obligation, and it wasn't a fanatical applause such as one hears at a rock concert. It was the respectful, earnest, _hopeful_ applause that a hungry crowd gives to a leader.

And Charity realized that Snape was no longer hers. He belonged to the people. He was already a hero and would now be a leader in this new world. Charity was no longer the only one that saw the good in him, the only one that needed him. Even as she felt her heart sink she knew she was being absurd. Snape was alive! This was a cause to rejoice, not lick her selfish, spoiled wounds. Wasn't the fact that the world would be a better place with Snape's brilliance in it enough to satisfy her? And didn't the fact that he'd sought her out in the crowd tell her that she still mattered to him, at least a little bit?

Without any time seeming to have passed, dinner was over, plates cleared, and the music begun. Classical music floated throughout the room, and nearly all of the guests, Charity included, swirled in elegant geometric patterns around the dance floor. There would be no slam dancing to the Weird Sisters tonight. As the bodies moved all around her, Charity kept an eye out for Snape. She caught a glimpse of him once, standing among the tables and talking with a group of men, but lost sight of him when she had to return her attention to the complicated steps of the dance.

She knew she wouldn't get a chance to speak with Snape this evening; there were people in the room of far more importance than her who had dibs on the returned hero's time, but she needed to at least look at him. Several turns later, she still hadn't been able to find him again. Everything around her seemed to be moving—the dancers, the floor, the chandeliers and the walls. It all became jumbled into one giant obstacle between her and Snape. She started to panic. What if he was gone! What if she'd lost him for good and would never find him again? Her breath came in shallow spurts. She lost focus on the dance entirely and stopped, but everything kept moving around her, and somehow her inanimate form didn't disturb the flow.

Suddenly, Charity was snatched away and found herself standing in the dark corridor outside the Great Hall. Through the flickering torchlight she stared into the severe outline of Severus Snape's face.

"Severus," she gasped.

"It was getting a bit stuffy in there, didn't you think?" He said, his black eyes steady on hers.

"Oh Severus," was all she could she could get out as she dug her fingers into his biceps, making sure he was really there.

Voices approached the nearest exit from the ballroom, and Snape quickly slid a hand to small of Charity's back and pulled her close to whisper urgently into her ear, "Is there somewhere else you'd like to go?"

Charity laughed her yes and grabbed his hand. Before anyone else emerged from the ballroom the two of them were spiraling up the stone steps of the astronomy tower. Once they reached the top and stood under the few shining stars that managed to peek out from behind the inky clouds in the night sky, Charity turned to him and threw her arms around his neck. He laid one palm flat across her back, and stroked the other across the side of her face. For a long time the two of them merely watched each other. They weren't going to spend their time talking about meaningless things, such as what they'd both been doing for these last months; they were simply going to be together.

But there was one new development that Charity did need to tell Snape about, and so, after she'd gleaned enough information from his countenance, she softly asked him, "Severus, do you love me?"

"Of course," he answered.

"On our last night together," she continued, "do you remember how _much_ you loved me?"

He bent to rest his forehead on hers and closed his eyes. He stroked his thumb tenderly across her lips as he thought back on the intimacy they'd shared. "I'll never forget," he murmured.

Charity reached around and grasped onto the hand he had behind her and slowly pulled it around. Laying her hand across the back of Snape's bony fingers, she then pressed his palm to her rounded belly. The swell had been hidden under the loose, gauzy fabric that hung from her Empire waist, but now that he felt it, there could be no mistaking his lover's condition.

Snape opened his eyes and pulled his head back to stare down at his hand, and Charity stood motionless, waiting for his full reaction. He kept that hand planted at her womb, but in one swift motion, he raked the other through her hair and pressed his mouth to hers in a fervent kiss.

"Charity," he huffed when he finally pulled his mouth away. "Charity, Charity," he murmured as he kissed her cheek, her chin, her neck, her bosom, all the way down until he knelt before her and nuzzled his face into the soft folds of fabric at her stomach. "I don't deserve this. I've never done anything to deserve such happiness."

Charity clutched her fingers in his hair and cried in relief. She couldn't believe he was here, and that she'd told him, and that he was happy. "I love you Severus. I love you."

He looked up at her and rested his chin on her belly as he reached his hands to her sides. "Charity, my angel, you have no idea how the mere thought of you pulled me through all of these long, terrible months. How you gave me strength then and continue to do so now. There's no reason to wait. There never was. Charity Burbage, will you do me the honor of being my wife?"

Charity smiled through her tears and laughed. "Yes, yes!"

A rumble of thunder peeled through the night sky, and large drops of rain fell down on them. Charity looked down on Snape, still with her fingers entwined in his long hair. But something had changed; the sharp angles of his features were blurred and he no longer felt solid beneath her touch. The patter of rain sounded all around, yet Charity didn't get wet. But with every drop that fell, more of Snape smudged and disintegrated until he was nothing more than a sagging pile of cloth between Charity's fingers.

.

Charity's eyes jolted open, and she looked with disgust at the blanket she desperately gripped in her clenched hands. Another dream about Snape. Always so wonderful while they lasted, but always so difficult to wake up from.

A cold winter rain knocked against her window, and she gingerly pushed herself up to standing, tossing aside the offending blanket. She padded across her tiny apartment to peer through the streaks onto the wet Parisian street below her. Looked like she'd better bring her sturdiest umbrella down to the boulangerie this morning. The two block walk had been her only form of exercise these last weeks, so she didn't even consider skipping it. Besides, the best chocolate croissant in the city awaited her there.

As she tried to shake off the dream, her hand instinctively came to rest on her swollen belly, and she silently thanked God that at least that part of it was true. She traced slow, affectionate circles across her abdomen and smiled. Any day now, Charity Burbage was going to come face-to-face with Severus Snape's child.

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**Author's Note:** I just want you to know that I know Snape is acting a bit overly romantical and OOC here. But it was a dream, right, and Charity is idealizing. If you haven't read _Charity Burbage and the Potions Master _yet, I promise that you'll find the ill-tempered Snape that we all know and, er, tolerate there. ;)

I'm looking forward to seeing you again in Chapter One. I've missed this world and am so happy to be back.

-LiLa


	2. Chapter 1: Six Months Earlier

Chapter 1

_Six months earlier_

Professors Burbage and McGonagall hunched over pages of parchment and piles of Muggle history texts and works of literature. They had been discussing the Muggle Studies curriculum for the coming school year, and as had become their habit, had become distracted by stories of Charity's many months masquerading as a Muggle while in hiding from Lord Voldemort.

"He actually told them that you were a witch?" McGonagall gasped.

"Yes!" Charity shrieked. "You should've seen the frightened looks on the student's faces. I thought their teacher was going to march down the hall and throttle Bernie."

"What did you do?"

"Well, I promised that I wasn't going to eat them and then we continued on with the tour of the museum."

McGonagall chuckled, and then her smile faded. "Yes, well, those children—and Bernie—have no idea how lucky they were that you were the witch they came across and not Bellatrix Lestrange."

Charity shuddered. "Yes. Thank goodness she and Voldemort have all been taken care of once and for all."

"True, true, however, just because the immediate danger is gone, we must never become complacent. Constant vigilance," Minerva McGonagall warned.

Charity nodded in agreement and they returned to the business of Muggle Studies. Charity enjoyed this new camaraderie with the acting Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The two women had always been on good terms, but their relationship had been more like that of a parent and a child; now it felt more like they were friends.

A soft knock sounded at the door. "Come in," McGonagall called out.

A *snap* sounded in the middle of the office and a small, grey-skinned creature wearing a burlap sack suddenly appeared in the middle of the table, standing on one of the stacks of papers.

"Penelope!" McGonagall scolded. "I thought you'd been practicing your room entry."

"Yes, Professor. Sorry, Professor. Penelope must practice more, Professor," the small creature squeaked. Penelope was a young house elf in training. The senior house elf staff had been granted a two week holiday after all their hard work on the Hogwarts refurbishment, and the junior elves took over their duties in the meantime.

"Mister Oliver Wood is here to see Professor," Penelope said, looking down at her bare, knobby feet.

"Wood? Hm, I suppose Puddlemere's sent him here to find out which of Hogwarts' Quidditch players will be worth scouting this year. Tell him to take it up with Madam Hooch," McGonagall instructed.

Penelope beat her fist into her chest to scold herself. "Burbage. Professor _Burbage_. Mister Oliver Wood is here to see Professor Burbage."

McGonagall's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"Oh," Charity exclaimed. She and Oliver had been communicating fairly regularly by owl post since running into each other at Snape's funeral three weeks prior, but she hadn't been expecting an in-person visit. "Penelope, will you please tell Mister Wood to wait—"

"No, that's fine," McGonagall said with a wave of her hand. "I think we've covered enough today. Do be sure to tell Mister Wood I said congratulations on being named team captain."

"Was he?" Charity said more to herself than to McGonagall as she gathered up her things. He hadn't mentioned it in any of his letters. She hoisted her pile of papers and followed Penelope to the entrance hall where the tall, broad-shouldered Oliver Wood waited. Even aside from his bulk, there was something commanding and intense about his presence, and Charity thought that Puddlemere had made an excellent choice.

"Why, hello, _Captain_ Ollie,"Charity teased. "And what brings you to visit us lowly common folk?"

Oliver rolled his eyes and turned slightly pink. "So you've heard."

"Of course I've heard. It's not every day a Hogwarts graduate gets named team captain of a professional Quidditch team!"

"Only temporary captain, just until Fitzwilliam recovers from his injury." He shrugged modestly, and Charity couldn't help but remember the way his chest had puffed out so proudly at the mere mention of Puddlemere a few years ago when he'd only been on the reserve team. It looked to her like young Oliver Wood had done some growing up. But this thought was not an entirely happy one to Charity; everyone had been forced to grow up at an accelerated pace during the war.

"Either way, congratulations," she told him.

"Thank you, and in answer to your other question, I'm here to drop these off for your father." His grin widened as he handed her a set of tickets for Puddlemere's next home game.

"Box seats, includes a pass for the after-feast with the team. Figured your dad would get a kick out of that. There's an extra ticket in there…one for you if you'd like it."

"Thanks, Ollie. That's very sweet of you. I'll have to see what my schedule's like when the game comes around. It's rather harried around here. But you could've just sent these by owl, or had them delivered to my father's offices. There was no need to come all the way out here."

"I was in the area. And the team will be heading out on the road for a few weeks, so to be honest, I…I wanted to see you before I go." He locked an intense gaze on Charity that made her slightly uncomfortable.

But she adored Oliver, and so she brushed the awkwardness she felt aside with a joke. "You're not afraid I'm going to disappear into nowhere again, are you?"

Wood smiled, but nevertheless asked, "You won't, will you?"

"Ollie…" Charity chided. "Well, since you're here, let's get you some tea."

A loud *snap* cracked through the entrance hall as Penelope presumably went to the kitchens to prepare tea.

"Penelope!" Charity called, and the young elf reappeared. "I'll prepare the tea. You'll be busy enough practicing some other things, won't you? And I need some practice myself. Don't want to get rusty on my Muggle skills, now, do I?"

Professor Burbage took Wood by the arm and led him to the kitchen, where a battalion of junior elves seemed not at all surprised to see her; she'd become something of a fixture in places where other professors rarely set foot. She went to her personal cabinet filled with Muggle ingredients and pulled out tea bags and wafer cookies. She pointed her wand at on one of the faux oven burners and set a tea kettle full of water on it to heat while she arranged the wafers on a plate.

Oliver pulled up a stool to the counter and sat down while he watched her work. "So, you won't be serving chocolate today?"

Charity's eyes flew up to him and she blushed. He'd sent her three small boxes of chocolates when he'd been playing Quidditch in the French countryside the week before. "I would gladly serve your delicious chocolates…if there were any left."

Ollie raised an eyebrow, "Did you share with the other staff, then?"

Charity's blush deepened.

"You ate them all yourself?" Oliver blurted.

Charity nodded and then immediately launched into a flurried defense. "They were amazingly good, Ollie. So smooth and rich—I've never had anything like it. And…and, well, my appetite has been a bit dodgy lately and for the last week the only thing that's really seemed appetizing to me were those chocolates, and so…I ate them. All of them."

"Carb loading, eh?" Oliver chuckled. "I'm sorry; I shouldn't laugh. I'm just surprised that someone as little as you could consume such a massive amount of calories in such a short amount of t-ti—er, change tactics, Wood—look, I'm glad you tried them all, because I want to ask you a question."

"What's that?"

"Which were your favorite?" He leaned forward on both elbows and peered expectantly at her.

Charity leaned back from the counter and narrowed her eyes. "Why does this question sound far more important than it ought to?"

Oliver gave her a sly smile. "The woman who owns the chocolate shop says you can tell a lot about a person by the chocolates they prefer."

"Really? Tell me more," Charity coaxed, and young Wood, never one to play it close to the vest, spilled it all.

"If white chocolate is your favorite, it means you're very sweet. If you prefer dark chocolate, it means there's more to you than meets the eye, and if you prefer chocolate with nuts, well then, you're nuts."

Charity laughed and said, "I liked them all equally."

A huge grin burst across Oliver's face. "That's exactly what she said you'd say."

The tea pot screamed its whistle and Charity bustled over to take it from the heat. Then she poured it into the tea pot on her tray, which Oliver lifted and carried to a table in the empty Great Hall. As they sipped their tea he surveyed the place and sighed.

"Memories?" Charity asked.

"Yep. Lots of good ones. Lots of stupid ones too. Ah, it's so true that youth is wasted on the young."

Charity snorted and almost spit tea all over herself. "Oliver Wood, exactly how old are you now—eighty?"

"Twenty-two," he answered.

"Still a puppy."

"Oh yes, and you're so ancient. You're only five years older than me."

Charity nodded and the corners of her mouth turned down. "True. Sometimes I forget that. I feel so much older…with everything that's happened. Feels like I've already lived a lifetime." And there it was—the ache for Snape. She'd gone almost two whole hours without it twisting her insides; that had to be a record.

Oliver reached across the table and laid his hand on hers. "It's over now. We made it. Everything will be good again; you'll see."

Charity could only nod as tears filled her eyes. Everything would be good; life would go on, but it would all be without Snape. He'd been ripped away from her too soon, taken before their story was complete, and now she felt lost most of the time. She went through the motions just fine, but that was all they were. Motions. There was little feeling or purpose behind them. She only wanted to get through each day so she could go to bed and dream of Snape.

The worst part was, she had no one to talk to about the entirety of her grief. She still worried about sullying Snape's reputation if word got out about the nature of their relationship. After his death, he'd finally found acceptance and honor in the wizarding community, and Charity would not be the one to take that away from him.

"Thanks, Ollie." Charity wiped her tears. "And thank you for coming to visit with me. Despite this," she said, waving her wet napkin, "this has been one of the more pleasant afternoons I've had in a while."

"I'm glad of that." Oliver said and stroked his calloused thumb over her the back of her hand. "You know that I'll be there for you whenever you need me. Just send me an owl…and I'll send you some chocolate straightaway."

Charity's face brightened. "Oliver Wood, you are an absolute gem."

They finished their tea and returned the tray and dishes to the kitchen. By then it was time for Oliver to leave if he was going to make it back in time for the extra evening practice he'd scheduled. "The team could use some work on its night play," he explained. So Charity walked with him to the entrance hall and they'd said their goodbyes-but only after Oliver extracted a promise from Charity that she'd try to join her father at the next home game.

As Charity made her way back to her room, she passed Filch perched precariously atop a tall ladder. He held a broom, extended all the way up, and a rancid smell filled the air, making Charity feel slightly queasy.

"Mr Filch, what are you doing?"

"Stinking them out," Filch snapped back.

"Found more skitchers?" Charity asked. After the goblins had completed their guild work and exited the castle, it was discovered that the wooden trimmings around Hogwarts were infested with wood skitchers, tiny little creatures that burrowed holes into woodwork and often annoyed the residents with their high-pitched humming.

"Course I found more skitchers. Where there's one, there's thousands. Goblins did this on purpose," he spat.

He stretched his skinny arm as far as it would go, and the ladder shifted. Charity rushed over to hold it steady.

Filch was a Squib. That meant he was born into a magical family but had no magical ability. He was essentially like a Muggle, but was different because he grew up around wizards and witches and knew all about magic. Charity wasn't sure about Filch, but she knew that most Squibs were able to detect magic and see magical beings that Muggles couldn't. So Squibs were essentially misfits no matter which world, magical or non, they tried to assimilate into. It irritated Charity to no end how snobbish the magical community could be when it came to Squibs. So even though Filch was a nasty old grump, Charity tried to be kind to him.

"Why don't we trade places, Mister Filch? I can see you've been at this for a while and you must be tired. My arms are still fresh."

He glared down at her, but then lowered the broom and rubbed his shoulder. "Guess it couldn't hurt to rest my arm a bit. But make sure to douse 'em good. I don't want all my hard work wasted because some pretty little witch doesn't know what she's doing."

While he struggled his way down the ladder with the broom, Charity surreptitiously slid her wand out and up her sleeve. She'd douse them alright—with magic, but Filch didn't need to know that. She didn't see any harm in letting him think that it was his solution of…whatever that stuff was that did the job.

She made her way awkwardly up the rungs, carrying the useless broom that Filch had passed off to her. As she ascended, she began to wonder if perhaps getting in such close proximity to the stench wasn't such a good idea. The higher she went, the more lightheaded she felt. After taking a shallow breath through her mouth to settle her stomach, she positioned her hand just so on the inside of the broom's handle. She aimed the contraption at the ceiling molding and thrust forward with a quiet murmur. "Flipendo."

A high-pitched screeching raced along the ceiling, and then about fifteen feet down the hallway, small, spider-sized critters fell to the ground and lay limp.

"Hoo-hoo!" Filch cheered. "Nothing like turpentine and fermented algae to do the trick. Who needs magic?" he practically sang to himself as he hobbled down the hall and swept the deceased critters into his dust pan.

"You may want to drop them into your bucket of, er, solution, just to be sure," Charity said. She'd only knocked them down, and although the fall to the stone floor likely killed them, she couldn't be sure.

Filch frowned. "Of course I'm gonna drop them in the bucket. Do you think I'm new at this?"

Charity continued knocking skitchers down to the floor. She and Filch eventually moved the ladder further down the hall, and Charity climbed up to the top again with no complaints from Filch. The up and down movement along with the prolonged stench made Charity more lightheaded than ever, but the job was just about finished, so she didn't want to give up.

"It's been a long time since we've worked together like this, hasn't it?" Charity commented. "Before the Triwizard tournament; do you remember?"

Filch merely grunted in response, so Charity returned to working silently, with her thoughts going back all the way to when she first became a professor at Hogwarts almost four years earlier. As the junior member of the staff, she'd been assigned to work with Filch to clean up the halls. She'd hardly known Snape then. Her brow wrinkled as she tried to remember what it was like to not be in love with him. She couldn't.

She could remember what it was like not being with him. And she could remember not knowing that a man called Severus Snape even existed. But she couldn't remember what it _felt_ like to not love him. As she reflected further, she realized that she didn't want to remember that. And she wondered which would be worse—loving Snape but not having him here in this world, or having him here and not loving him. Both were wretched. She wanted to love him, and she wanted him here. Now.

She banished more skitchers to her left and then turned to get the other side, but she must have turned too quickly, because the nausea and dizziness she'd been fighting off overtook her. She gripped onto the ladder to steady herself and wait for her equilibrium to return, but her vision remained blurred with dark dots popping along the periphery and closing in until all she saw was black. She heard the broom she'd been holding clatter to the ground and Mr. Filch shout. The last sensation she felt was her fingers slipping from the top rung.

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.

**Author's Notes**

In order to be able to keep up with a regular update schedule (every 2-3 weeks), the chapters in this story are likely to be a bit shorter than the chapters in its predecessor. I hope you don't mind. And if anyone paid attention to the shenanigans I pulled on my "Survivor: Vampire Island" story and is afraid I'll go months between updates, fear not. For I have entered into a trade agreement with my good friend, Metropolis Kid whereby I agree to update one chapter of this story for every chapter he updates of his sequel to "Such a Quiet Thing to Fall," his wonderful Star Wars/Hellsing story. His new story is called "Knowing Normal's Hard to Fake" and is off to a fantastic start. If you like Star Wars at all, you should definitely check both of those stories out.

Something I could use help on in this story is with Britishisms. I adore them and would like to pepper them throughout the story, but not being British, I'm afraid it will sound false if I try to hard. So if you are British and if as you read along you seen any good opportunities to work in a British phrase, please do let me know!

Thanks for reading and thanks for reviewing!

-LiLa


	3. Chapter 2: For Merlin's Sake

Chapter 2

_For Merlin's Sake_

Charity opened her eyes and found herself looking up at Oliver Wood's broad chin. He was carrying her.

"Where are we going?" Charity murmured.

Oliver looked down at her, his eyes wild with worry, and quickened his already fast pace. "To see Madam Pomfrey. You need to be looked at by a professional."

For as graceful as Wood was on his broom out on the Quidditch pitch, he was something more akin to a cement mixer in his hurried state on foot. So Charity gripped him firmly around the neck and hoped that this trip to the nurse's office wasn't going to do more damage than whatever the fall may have done.

"Madam Pomfrey!" Oliver called once he'd shouldered the doors open to the infirmary. "I've got Professor Burbage. She fell from the top of a ladder in the Charms corridor. And when I caught her she was unconscious."

The school's nurse bustled over and peered into Charity's eyes, pulling up each of her lids with her thumb. "Looks lucid enough now." She lifted one of Charity's wrists and closed her eyes while apparently monitoring the young professor's pulse. Madam Pomfrey's forehead wrinkled for a moment as she continued her concentration, and then a soft smile crossed her face, and she opened her eyes. She regarded Charity with a curiously gentle expression and instructed, "Set her down on the bed over there, Mr. Wood. Thank you."

Oliver carefully set her down. "Is she going to be okay?"

"Physically—she's perfectly fine. But she'd better learn fast to take better care of herself. It's bad enough I have to watch the students continually subjecting themselves to foolhardy injuries, but a professor?"

"I'm perfectly capable of climbing a ladder," Charity said. "I think it was the fumes from Mr. Filch's turpentine and fermented…_something_ that made me dizzy."

"True enough any concoction of Filch's isn't generally good for your health, but-" The nurse paused and fixed her eyes on Charity's before continuing. "Is there any other reason that you may have felt light headed? Anything altered in your physical state?"

Charity merely stared blankly at the woman, clueless as to what she was digging for.

"All she's eaten for the past week is chocolate," Oliver offered.

Charity whipped her head toward him. "Tattle tale!"

"Well it's true, isn't it?" he insisted.

Madam Pomfrey raised a disapproving eyebrow.

"I, uhm, what are you doing here, anyhow, Oliver?" Charity asked. "I thought you left."

"I did. That is, I started to, but I…I wanted to get a look at the Gryffindor Quidditch trophy from my seventh year."

"And you're darned lucky he did," Madam Pomfrey added. "Otherwise you would've had to rely on Filch's feeble body to break your fall. I could've healed your bones easily enough, but Heaven knows there would've been injuries to other parts that even I couldn't have saved." The nurse looked suddenly grave. "Mr. Wood, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave now. Professor Burbage needs her rest."

Wood looked crestfallen. "I have a train to catch in twenty minutes. Can't I stay just a little longer?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Wood. You'll have to say your goodbyes now."

"Is she going to be all right?" he asked.

"I told you, she's perfectly fine. She simply needs to rest and to eat something with a bit of nutrition in it."

Charity scowled again at Oliver, but relented when she saw how truly sorry he was to have to leave her in that state. "I'm fine, Ollie. I'm in the best possible hands. You get along to your train and focus on Quidditch. I want Puddlemere to be in prime form when I come with my father to see you play in a few weeks."

Oliver's eyes brightened. "You'll come?"

Charity smiled. "I'll be there."

"Okay, then. You take care of yourself." He leaned down and gave Charity a delicate kiss on her forehead, and then turned and heartily shook Madam Pomfrey's hand. "Thanks, Madam Pomfrey. For everything. And I'm really sorry about the time me and my mates swiped your Pepperup Potion to get even with Slytherin for their cheating."

Pomfrey didn't so much as flinch at the confession. She merely told him to have a good trip. After the door shut behind him, she mused aloud, "He always was a very nice boy. A little intense at times, but genuine and good-hearted. And healthy as a Hungarian Horntail. Not a bad choice as far as genes go, I'd say."

"Um, I suppose," Charity said uncertainly, pushing herself up to sitting. "So do I really have to stay here? I think I could rest much better in my own quarters."

"Lie down," Madam Pomfrey ordered as she pulled up a chair to the bed and sat down. Charity did as she was told and looked up at the nurse, who watched her steadily. "What you do on your own time is none of my business, but your physical well-being is literally my business, and it appears that you are unaware of your current condition."

"Condition?"

"Professor Burbage, when was your last menstrual period?"

"Menstrual…I, I'm not sure." Charity was flustered by the abrupt interrogation. Pomfrey's hallmark was her don't-ask-don't-tell policy, so if she was digging further, something must really be wrong.

The nurse locked an intense gaze on Charity and pursed her lips, furthering the young professor's uneasiness.

"I haven't really paid attention with everything else going on," Charity explained. "It's been a while, but I know stress can change physical cycles, and I was never that regular to begin with," she offered hopefully.

Pomfrey still didn't say a word, but continued to watch Charity closely.

The perplexed patient's eyes darted around the room in thought. "I know for sure I haven't had it since returning to Hogwarts in the spring, beginning of last month. And before that…I'm sorry, but I just can't remember. Please Madam Pomfrey, tell me what you're thinking. What's wrong with me?"

The nurse let out a slightly exasperated sigh, and then explained very slowly, "Professor Burbage, when I felt your pulse, yours wasn't the only heartbeat I sensed."

"What?" Charity panicked and her hands flew to her chest, feeling for a second heart.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, Burbage! You're with child!"

"What?" Charity repeated, looking with utter confusion on the nurse. Then she thought back…back to London…back to her flat and an unexpected visit from Snape. Of course. Why had she never even considered the possibility before? She suddenly felt foolish; all the symptoms had been there—fatigue, change in appetite, mood swings—but she'd chalked it all up to stress and the possible onset of depression.

She absently let her hands trail down to her abdomen and spread across her belly. It was slightly rounded, not different than usual, but soon, very soon…

A soft smile played at the corners of Pomfrey's lips. "Congratulations, Professor."

. . . . .

Once Madame Pomfrey had firmly expounded upon the extra precautions and nutritional guidelines Charity would need to abide by in the coming months, she ceased asking any more questions, and Charity had never been more grateful for the woman's lack of curiosity about things that were not her business. But others would not exercise such discretion, and Charity would have to give them some sort of explanation. But with the loose-fitting robes everyone wore around Hogwarts, she could keep her secret for a bit longer, and so she pushed aside that worry—along with the goblet full of other concerns that came along with having a baby—and simply basked in the miracle of having a piece of Snape alive and growing inside of her.

The only one she confided in was Bnickel, her loyal and _mute_ pet rabbit. "Hey, sugar," she cooed to him as she held his furry form across her chest. "You're going to have a baby brother…or a sister. Won't that be fun?"

He'd responded with a nuzzle to her ear and then started squirming to be let down so he could hop around.

Charity felt a new peace settle on her. A peace she had been searching for, but one that had eluded her until now. Getting confirmation of Snape's love for her in the Pensieve had given her a temporary reprieve from the pain, but without Severus there, she found herself longing for some tangible proof of their love, something to hold on to. Until now, his picture in the frame he had given her on her last birthday was all that she had, and she'd spent hours put together staring into it. She reached for it again and pressed it to her abdomen, as if to tell him what was there.

Through the many articles about Snape that had been splattered over newspapers after his funeral, she'd learned that his mother was a witch called Eileen Prince, while his father was a Muggle, Tobias Snape. Charity had been amazed to find out that Snape was what some wizards crudely referred to as a half-blood. The revelation had only fed her regret that Snape had been taken from her too soon. They would have had so much to discuss once he'd gotten around to telling her this piece of his history.

Although, based on the hints in the articles about his father's general disposition, she was certain that not all of these conversations would have been pleasant. It sounded as if Snape senior had not been entirely accepting of his wife's magical abilities and kept the family separated from the community in a run down house on Spinner's End. Charity remembered that Snape had been reluctant to speak of his childhood whenever she'd pressed him on it and realized that he'd never once mentioned his father to her. The one time he'd spoken of his mother, it hadn't been in a flattering light, so it didn't appear his relationship with her had been much better.

Charity pulled the picture away and tilted it toward her, her heart breaking for the little boy who had grown into the man she now stared at through the blur of her tears. She whispered to his picture that she would give his offspring the happiest childhood imaginable. As she fingered the silver details of the frame and it radiated its now familiar glow, a thought struck her and she flipped the frame over to read the inscription on the back:

_To my darling Amalga, from your Prince._

"Prince?" she said aloud to no one but her rabbit, who was chewing on a corner of her dresser.

The coincidence nagged at her all night long, so the next day she headed into the library and dug through the archives to discover that Snape's mother had been born into a pure blood family. She was an only child, and so by marrying a Muggle, she'd put an end to the Prince's pure blood status. The information Charity found seemed to indicate that Eileen had been disowned by her family after marriage, the most damning evidence being that the Prince family had been quite wealthy, yet they let their daughter and grandchild live in near poverty.

"She must have truly loved him," Charity murmured to herself.

The obituary of Eileen's father, who'd survived his wife by four years, said he'd bequeathed the entirety of his fortune to various charitable endowments, indicating that there had been no reconciliation with his daughter prior to his death. Eileen followed her parents to the afterlife a mere two years later. Charity found nothing more regarding Snape's father, even Eileen's obituary made no mention of him, so she could only assume that he'd died at some earlier point.

After finding Eileen's parents, Charity was stuck. She tapped her wand impatiently on the pages. She _knew_ that the "Prince" engraved on her picture frame was not a mere coincidence and that somewhere in Snape's ancestry there had been an Amalga. She wanted proof that what she held in her hands every day was something more meaningful than a trinket; she wanted evidence that it was a piece of Snape's history. As her wand continuously tapped, she noticed that the words it struck quivered and slightly faded, with new letters seeming to want to form behind them.

"Aha," she murmured. This was no Muggle archive. As with everything magical, there was more than met the eye—this volume contained layers of information. But knowing the layers were there and getting to them were two entirely different matters. A low groan escaped Charity. She didn't' want to do what was coming next, but there was nothing for it—if she wanted to find Amalga, she was going to have to confer with Professor Binns. He was the history professor, after all.

Several hours later, Charity was back in a secluded corner of the library with her wand and the obituary of Snape's maternal grandfather, Bartholomew Prince. She'd gone to see Binns and asked him to teach her how to delve into the archives' magically bound information. She'd dozed off while Binns' ethereal form had sketched out the entire history of search spells, but she was fairly certain she'd picked up the pertinent bits of information.

She wrote the word "ancestry" on a piece of paper, and then tapped her wand lightly on that word and then "Bartholomew" and "Prince" while she murmured the incantation Binns had taught her: _googlium serchosa_.

The words on the page quivered as they had before, and then completely disappeared to be replaced by bits of information about the parents of Bartholomew, neither of which were named Amalga. Charity repeated her search eleven more times before she found it—Amalga Milstead, who'd been married to Aldrich Prince in 1738. The picture frame was nearly three hundred years old! While all other Prince family assets had been willed to charity, this one had found its way into Snape's hands and he'd given it to his own Charity. It made sense to her now that the frame would take on the shimmery glow when she held it close. I must've been leftover magic that had been imbued on the frame by someone in the pure blood family. The magic had apparently faded over the centuries to a dull glow.

Satisfying herself with this discovery, Charity continued about her duties at Hogwarts with her tiny secret tucked safely away. June turned to July and her belly swelled a bit more, but only so much that she would notice. Others had, however, noticed the serene smile that frequently overtook her features. As more staff commented on it, Charity found that she wanted to tell them; keeping her delight to herself was getting more and more difficult. But she wasn't ready to put herself back in the limelight quite yet, so she told them it was simply her reaction to the summer temperatures. She'd always spent her summers with her parents before, so they had nothing to compare her mood against. Even still, she didn't like to lie, and the urge to give in and share her joy with someone else was growing stronger, so she started spending more time alone.

. . . . .

One day at the end of July, she sat on the banks of Black Lake gazing out on its smooth, glassy surface. A thin arm of the giant squid occasionally sent a cascade of ripples at it flicked above the water to swat at a dragonfly. It was at this lake that she'd first begun to look at Snape as something other than a condescending colleague with attitude problems. She'd heard that Snape was a skilled wizard, but seeing his talent in action was another story, and she'd been deeply impressed by how effortlessly he'd saved her students before a Kelpie could drown them. And when he'd stalked off afterwards, neither wanting nor expecting praise, he'd touched a more tender side of Charity's heart. She smiled. She was now going to get to shower that soft, nurturing tendency of hers on Snape's child.

"Professor Burbage? Professor Burbage!" A young girl came running down the hill from the castle. "I thought that was you!"

"Jessica! What are you doing here? School doesn't start for another month." Jessica Morgan was a Ravenclaw student that had been in Charity's class the year before last.

"My mum and dad wanted to check the place out before they send me back, double-check security precautions and all that." Jessica rolled her eyes.

"That's understandable. I imagine lots of other parents will do the same." Charity sighed and took Jessica in. "Oh my, you look so much older."

"Well, I am a year older than last time you saw me." Jessica's smile faltered. "We really missed you around here last year, especially when we thought...that…you know."

Charity reached out and pulled Jessica into a hug. "I know. I know. I missed you all terribly too. It was so awful knowing what you all must've thought happened. What almost did happen."

Jessica pulled back and said, "Yeah, I heard Professor Snape saved you. Who would've guessed he was a good guy, after all." Then she added bitterly, "Sure wish he would've let us all in on that little fact."

"Oh, Jessica. Professor Snape was living a complicated life. He had to keep secrets and act certain ways…"

"Yeah, I know. I've read all about it. It's just hard to imagine it though. Did…did you spend a lot of time with him when you were in hiding? What's he like? I mean, when he's not pretending to be a meanie, is he, er, normal?"

Charity held back a laugh. "Mmm, I'm not sure 'normal' is quite the word for it. But he did have his pleasant side. He made me smile many times, and he could be surprisingly kind and gentle."

Jessica jerked her head back and scrunched her face into a sour expression. "Okay, you better stop now unless you want to see what happened to me last time I downed a handful of Puking Pastilles."

Before Charity could launch into a second attempt at defending Snape, a man and woman stepped out of the castle, led by Professor McGonagall.

"Come meet my parents," Jessica said, pulling her former professor's hand. She led her over to the front steps of the castle where she made introductions. Mr. and Mrs. Morgan recognized Charity's name immediately and expressed their sorrow for her ordeal and relief at her return.

"I suppose that after such a harrowing experience and seeing how short life is, it won't be long before you leave Hogwarts permanently," Jessica's mother said.

"Leave Hogwarts?" Charity questioned.

"Why, at your age, I imagine that you'll want to find a husband and have children of your own soon."

_Minus the husband_, Charity thought, but was much too flustered to formulate a proper response to make aloud. She couldn't get past the "Leave Hogwarts."

Fortunately, Professor McGonagall stepped in. "There are no rules against Hogwarts staff getting married and having families, Mrs. Morgan."

The woman's eyebrows shot up. "There aren't?"

"Not for the last hundred years," McGonagall answered crisply.

"But none of the staff are married…" Mrs. Morgan's defense trailed off under McGonagall's icy glare.

"Yes, well, social mores die hard," the elderly professor answered. "If you would like to see the official rules, I could have a copy dropped off by owl later this afternoon."

The conversation moved in the direction of school policy, and as the three other adults continued their discussion, Charity watched Jessica romp about the lawn chasing butterflies. The girl had to be going on fifteen, but she suddenly seemed so much younger.

Children in the magical world, while being exposed to so much that Muggle children were unaware of, were kept more sheltered when it came to social issues. Witches and wizards were a conservative lot when it came to marriage and pregnancy. If society had kept Hogwarts from having a married teacher on staff, what would the reaction be when one of those teachers turned out to be pregnant out of wedlock? The parents would be in an uproar.

Charity supposed that if she and Snape had been married before he'd died, there might have been a chance of her pregnancy being accepted at the school. And even though Charity knew with everything she was made of that she and Snape would have been married, that fact would hold no water with Hogwarts parents…or the school board…or probably even most of the staff. They simply wouldn't countenance having to explain such a thing to the young students.

Charity stayed silent as she watch Jessica's sweet, innocent face light up when a butterfly fluttered to land on her outstretched finger. The girl glanced over and smiled, and Charity's heart plummeted. She was going to have to leave Hogwarts.

.

.

.

**Author's Notes**

Bubble gum, bubble gum in a dish.

How many pieces do you wish?

One-two-three-four-five

and Metro Kid is it!

;P


	4. Chapter 3: How Do You Feel About Potions

Chapter 3

_How do you feel about Potions?_

Professor McGonagall accepted Charity's teary resignation with only a minimal attempt to change her mind. While McGonagall had assured her that the school board wouldn't have a broom to fly on if it took issue with a pregnant professor staying on, she admitted that disapproving parents would have plenty of other ways to make things difficult. As much as both Charity and the acting headmistress wanted to take a stand, neither of them was willing to make a pawn of the innocent baby.

Charity hadn't told McGonagall who the father was, and McGonagall hadn't asked, but the perceptive witch gave her suspicions away when she gave Charity one final hug on the front steps of the castle. "Take care of the great gift with which you've been entrusted. I pray the child gets _your_ nose."

Charity laughed through her tears, and then she was gone. The next tell was going to be even more difficult. Her parents.

.

. . . . .

.

"I…I'm going to have a grandbaby?" Mrs. Burbage stammered while Mr. Burbage reflexively balled and tensed his hands, looking vaguely as if he wanted to strangle someone—more than likely the man whose identity Charity had yet to divulge.

But Charity was encouraged by her mother's statement. It wouldn't be long before the woman's shock turned into a renewed determination to master the Muggle art of knitting, a habit that had gone by the wayside thousands of times before, but now there were booties to be made!

Charity had yet more revelations to drop on her parents, and since Mr. Burbage seemed to be turning redder by the second, she figured it was best to get on with it.

"You both know how highly I came to regard Professor Snape. Severus. Well, the truth is that my fondness for him turned to something more than respect. I fell in love with him. And he loved me too, and we…the child is his."

A strangled cough escaped Mr. Burbage. Charity searched for the words with which to soothe him, but her mother spoke first.

"I'm going to have a _famous_ grandbaby?"

"Er yeah, Mum, that's actually something else I wanted to talk to you about. As you say, the baby will be born a celebrity, and if there's any hope of him having anything closely resembling a normal childhood…well, I'll have to go away."

Her mother's mouth gaped open, and Charity rushed on with her explanation. "Nobody knows about Snape and I, but once word of my pregnancy gets out and the timing is apparent, they'll figure it out soon enough. And then they'll never let us alone. The press will be hounding us from the moment the doctor smacks his bottom. I've heard you both say dozens of times that the best thing for the Potter child was to have been raised in anonymity with his Muggle aunt and uncle."

Mrs. Burbage looked to her husband and said hopefully, "Little Whinging isn't too far."

"Well…" Charity paused. In one breath she had told her mother she was going to have a grandchild, and in the very next she was going to take that grandchild away from her. "From what I understand, Professor Dumbledore had put very strong protections on the Dursley residence; that's what kept Harry's location a secret. But we…we won't be able to do the same."

"Oh, pish posh," Mrs. Burbage said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Your father knows about all kinds of mysterious charms."

Mr. Burbage moved for the first time since Charity had dropped the initial bomb and stepped next to his wife to place a soothing hand on her shoulder. "Punkin, it's not a mere matter of know-how. There were special bonds required for that charm that we simply don't have. There are other options, but the complexities and ministry oversight would make it near impossible."

He raised his eyes to his daughter and gave a slight nod of his head. He knew what was coming. Charity gulped, and Mr. Burbage firmed up his grasp on his wife's shoulder.

"Mum, I'm going to have to leave the United Kingdom."

"No!" Mrs. Burbage shouted and jumped out of her chair, shaking her husband's hand off of her. "This is utter nonsense. I've put up with the two of you deciding everything for long enough! What does it ever get me? I'll tell you what it gets me—it gets my daughter kidnapped and living like a fugitive for a year, and now it's going to get my grandbaby half way around the world. No! I will perch myself on that roof," she shouted and jabbed her finger upwards, "and stupefy every reporter and busy body that makes her way to this house if I have to. But I will NOT have my daughter and my very first grandchild living in Zimbabwe or Argentina or…or…Saskatchewan!"

Charity's eyes were wide; she'd never before seen her mother so incensed. "Saskatchewan? Mum, I was thinking more along the lines of Paris."

"Paris?" her mother questioned. "France?"

"Yes." Charity smiled when she remembered that Snape had asked the same exact question on the very evening that had gotten her into this predicament in the first place.

"But that's only five hundred kilometers away. How will that protect you?" her mother asked.

"Oh, so now you want me to go farther?"

"No! I-I want you to be safe…and happy." Mrs. Burbage sank back down to her chair and watched Charity with her lips pressed together and her brow furrowed with concern.

Charity gave her mother a small, reassuring smile. "In my situation, distance is not nearly as important as inter-wizard relations. And communication between the magical community of the United Kingdom and that of France is virtually non-existent. Our regions communicate on official policy via the International Confederation of Wizards, but that's about it. We may as well be on different planets."

"It's true," Mr. Burbage said. "Remember what a big deal it was to get Beauxbatons to come to the Tri-wizard tournament in England?"

"Yes," Charity answered. "And by the looks on the Hogwarts students' faces, they'd never seen French students before. How many visits did the three of us go on to Paris when I was growing up? Dozens, but we never once visited any magical friends. Why is that?"

"We…we don't have any French friends," Mrs. Burbage answered.

"Exactly! We don't socialize."

"Ah, but the oldest Weasley boy married a French girl last summer, didn't he?" Mr. Burbage interrupted.

Charity frowned. She hadn't thought of that. "Well, I suppose things might be starting to change, but close ties like that are still not the norm. So while the French magical community knows the big things that go on around here, they don't pay attention to the small stuff. They're not going to know that the witch Snape rescued has left Hogwarts…er, perhaps that is something that would make their radar, but I can go to Paris using a different name, and no one there will think twice about me. And in a big city like that, I hardly think an unmarried mother is going to draw much attention, particularly among the Muggles."

"Are you going to be a Muggle again?" her mother asked.

"No, but I think if there was some way for me to exist more in that community rather than in the midst of the magical one, it would be better." Charity's voice weakened at the end of her sentence. This was where things got a little fuzzy for her. She was set on leaving and certain that Paris was the place to go, but she wasn't at all sure about what she would do when she got there. "I was hoping you two would be able to help me figure that out."

Mr. and Mrs. Burbage turned towards each other, and Charity tentatively watched them. She needed their help or this was never going to work. And if they were still resistant to the idea, her entire plan would fall apart.

After a silent exchange with her husband, Mrs. Burbage turned to her daughter. "You just make sure your new flat has a spare bedroom for when I visit."

Mr. Burbage came and wrapped his arms around Charity. She gave her father an appreciative squeeze and pressed her face into his shoulder to hide the relieved tears that broke loose. She wasn't in this alone anymore.

"Let me do a little digging around, kitten," he told her. "We'll figure it out."

The very next day, Charity sent the family owl to fetch Parisian newspapers—both magical and Muggle—so she could begin her job search. She was looking for something that would provide her both a degree of anonymity and a flexible schedule for after the baby arrived. Three days later, all of her scouring had led to exactly zero such positions.

On the fourth day, Mr. Burbage returned from work wearing an uncharacteristic Cheshire grin. He didn't say a word but plopped down at the table, as usual, and unfolded his newspaper, as usual. He sat opposite Charity, who was busy scanning the want ads of yet another French newspaper. Mrs. Burbage was out in the garden, so it was just the two of them.

Out of the corner of her eye, Charity saw that her father was neither reading his newspaper nor watching the pictures. He was peering over the top of it at her.

"What?" she asked.

"I had an interesting conversation with a colleague at work today."

"Good," she answered politely, but straightened her paper more forcefully than was necessary, betraying her irritation. Her fruitless job search had left her feeling insecure and doubtful that she'd ever again have _colleagues_, and she really didn't care to hear about how _interesting_ conversations at _work_ could be.

"It concerned you. A possible business opportunity."

"Really?" Charity let her paper fall to the table. Her father dropped his paper too and beamed at her, sending a twinge of guilt through Charity for feeling frustrated with him a moment earlier.

"But I'm not sure it'll work out…"

"Da-a-d," Charity groaned, her guilt immediately fading.

"Well, I suppose it all depends—how do you feel about potions?"

.

. . . . .

.

The next day, Charity dressed for the city and accompanied her father to his offices to meet with his colleague, Lenny Henderson. Lenny did freelance reporting for _Magical Minds Weekly_ and other periodicals published by Mr. Burbage's company. He'd lived in France for a couple of years and still had some connections there.

The reporter was a shaggy-haired Scottsman. He wore a tweed jacket and smelled of cigarettes. He didn't appear to be much older than Charity, and despite his scruffy appearance, his relaxed, confident posture and easy smile left Charity in no doubt that her father's warnings about Henderson's reputation as a ladies' man weren't merely the product of a father's paranoia.

Lenny told them about a Squib in Paris who had occasionally posed as a Muggle to dig up information for his investigative pieces. "Natalie DeMontagne. She's retired from the undercover business now, but I still look her up whenever I'm in town. About a year ago she opened up an aromatherapy boutique. At least, that's what the sign says. The sundries—perfumes, lotions, vitamin oils—are actually mild potions. They're mostly made with ingredients generally available to Muggles, and so she's got the permission of the French Ministry of Magic to operate her shop in a Muggle neighborhood. She calls it Ma Jolie Petite.

"Naturally, the Muggles find her disguised potions to be quite effective. The body mists that claim to attract the opposite sex, do, even if it's just for a short while. But sometimes all an attraction needs is a little push to help it along." He gave Charity a playful wink. "The scents are more pungent and longer lasting than anything a Muggle can produce. And you didn't hear this from me, but there just might be something in her products that seeps into the Muggles' pores and leaves 'em feeling euphoric."

"This is incredible!" Charity exclaimed. "I always told Sn- er, my friends that potions could be the great unifying factor between Wizards and Muggles. But do the Muggles really not suspect?"

Lenny shrugged. "They know something's different about Jolie Petite's products all right. Business is booming. Attracted enough attention that the Ministry swooped in before the Muggles could get suspicious, they made Nat tone things down. So now she's not got such an edge, and growth slowed. But Nat doesn't mind; she never wanted to be Coco Chanel. Just needs to make enough, she says. She's independent, that one. Doesn't ever want to depend on anyone for anything.

"Even still, her business has become such that it's eating into her free time." Henderson let out a low chuckle. "Nat certainly does make good use of her free time, so I told her I'd do what I could to find someone to help out at the shop—a partner."

Mr. Burbage raised a skeptical eyebrow. "If business is that good, wouldn't people be jumping at the chance?"

"You would think," Lenny said and leaned back, reaching his arm around to scratch behind his neck. "But like I said, Nat's independent. She doesn't want anyone who'll come in and try to take over. Not only that, she needs someone who spans both the magical and non-magical worlds because they obviously need some knowledge of magic to be able to work with the potions, but they've also got to be okay with living outside the magical realm and existing primarily with Muggles. Nat's been looking for another Squib, but from what your father said the other day, sounds like you might be just the one."

Lenny's attention was all on Charity, whose eyes flicked quickly toward her father. What he'd "said the other day" was simply that Charity was looking for a change in environment, that her return to the magical world had been jarring and she needed a breather from the community…a discreet breather. Mr. Burbage insisted that Lenny was someone they could trust to keep her whereabouts a secret, even if the reporter didn't fully understand why.

So far, the situation sounded ideal, but Charity and her father wanted to get a look at the business and meet the proprietor before making a final decision, so Lenny arranged a meeting, and Charity and her father took the chunnel to Paris the following weekend.

Charity hadn't vocalized it, but she was approaching that meeting with some trepidation. Filch was the only Squib she'd ever had a personal relationship with, and while she knew it was wrong to think in generalities, she couldn't help but harbor a small concern at the back of her mind that after years of being treated as outcasts, all Squibs had become resentful and bitter to some extent. After all, Lenny had even admitted that Natalie preferred working with another Squib. Was she prejudiced against Wizards?

On top of that, Lenny Henderson struck Charity as the kind of person who was always working an angle, and she was suspicious of what his angle might be here. It simply didn't make sense to her that the rumpled charmer would waste his time on an old Squib while visiting the City of Love. There had to be more to it. What exactly did this woman do for Lenny in her free time that she made such "good use" of?

Charity intended to ask a lot of questions during the course of the meeting. When she entered the boutique, however, she was able to surmise quite a bit without speaking a word. It was obvious at a glance that the proprietor of Ma Jolie Petite was _nothing_ like Filch. Natalie DeMontagne was perched on a stool in front of the glass counter at the back of the store. She looked to be in her mid-forties, and as Charity's eyes traveled the length of the tall, raven-haired woman, from the cigarette perched languidly in her manicured fingers to her lean, shapely legs crossed leisurely under her slim pencil skirt, she understood exactly why it was that Lenny Henderson looked this woman up whenever he was in town.

.

.

**Author's Note: **

Thanks for reading, darlings. :) Not the most excitement in this chapter, I know, but the plan is for this set-up to lead to some. Let's see if we can have some fun in Paris, hm?

And now Sir Metro, I pass the baton to you. ;)


	5. Chapter 4: Ma Jolie Petite

Chapter 4

Ma Jolie Petite

"Monsieur and Mademoiselle Burbage, n'est pas?" Natalie DeMontagne asked as she stood up and snuffed out her cigarette.

"Oui," Charity answered, and the sleek shop owner stepped over.

Varying sizes of armoires, bookshelves, and tables surrounded them. Some were carved with antique detailing while others were of distinctly modern shapes. Each was generously lacquered in white and laden with small, colorful glass bottles either arranged on mirrored trays, perched atop ceramic cake stands, or lying in crystal bowls. What could easily have been a disjointed mess was pulled together by a bold splash of wall-to-wall carpeting in a rich, charcoal grey.

The place was rather like a candy store all grown up—elegant, but with a touch of whimsy. As if everything else wasn't enough to tickle Charity's fancy, the backdrop to it all was a raspberry-colored curtain that spanned the entire back wall behind the simple glass counter.

"You like?" Natalie asked.

"It's charming," Charity answered, trying not to gush.

"I don't see any customers," Mr. Burbage prudently noted.

"Eh, Quidditch and football matches," Natalie answered, waving a dismissive hand. "The Muggles love their football as much as the Wizards love their Quidditch. But the lull provides an excellent opportunity for us to talk, n'est pas?"

Mr. Burbage conceded her point with a nod and continued. "We received your financials via owl earlier in the week. Thank you for sending that over. I see you've begun collecting a healthy amount in Wizard currency."

"Oui. Is a new business for me. Imagine that—wizards buying potions from a Squib." Ms. DeMontagne raised a somewhat challenging eyebrow, and her eyes flicked between Charity and Mr. Burbage.

Charity had been too busy admiring the swirling pattern in the curtain to notice the look, and turned to Natalie with a huge grin. "Oh yes, I'm sure you can teach me so much! I've always had an interest in potions and only ever lacked someone with the patience to teach me."

Natalie returned her smile.

Mr. Burbage cleared his throat. "Ms. DeMontagne, I'm sure Mr. Henderson explained my daughter's desire for, erm, discretion."

Charity's hand instinctively went to her stomach, and the reflex was not missed by Ma Jolie's proprietor—one corner of her painted lip curled up as she fitted in that piece of the puzzle.

"He told me," Natalie answered. "And I assure you, discretion is my middle name." She reached out to fold her fingers around Charity's left hand, gently lifting it and gliding her thumb pointedly over the witch's empty ring finger. "I see why it is you chose to get out of stodgy old England."

Before Charity's blush had time to fully form, Natalie grasped her hand more firmly and turned to lead her farther into the shop. "Come. I show you all the places your bébé will love to play."

"I can bring the baby to work with me?" Charity asked. She couldn't believe she hadn't had to broach the subject herself.

Natalie twisted her mouth into a smirk and gave Charity a sideways glance. "Would you accept the position under any other circumstances?"

"No," Charity admitted.

"Then your bébé will be as welcome as you. This," Natalie said, stopping in front of a particularly large amoire, "is the entrance to the Magicals-Only section."

"There's a whole separate section?" Charity asked.

"Oui. Certain of my mixtures don't meet ministry requirements for distribution to Muggles, and so I keep them in a special place."

The shop owner's eyes flashed mischievously as she pulled open the doors to the armoire.

On a shelf sat a tray of three large glass bottles. From the throat of each hung a heavy, silver tag. Charity read the tags:

_In 10% of users, contact with bottle causes outbreak of warts._

_A side effect of this serum is extreme flatulence._

_Prolonged use may lead to premature aging of the skin._

"Muggles won't touch the stuff," Natalie explained as she spun each bottle around exactly once. Then she pushed the tray aside and stepped into the armoire…and out the back side. She looked back in the general direction of Charity and Mr. Burbage, but it felt to Charity as if DeMontagne was looking through her rather than at her. She motioned with her hand for them to join her.

Charity and Mr. Burbage looked at each other and shrugged. Then the young mother-to-be, followed closely by her father, stepped into the armoire and passed through the shelves as if they weren't even there. Natalie didn't say a word as the pair emerged, but merely watched them expectantly.

Charity's heart sank. She should've known the situation truly was too good to be true. This woman was obviously unstable—someone had passed off a trick-armoire on her, and she'd convinced herself that it led to another room, when in reality, she was merely standing right where she'd begun.

Mr. Burbage let out a low whistle as he looked around, and Charity was grateful to see that he was playing along with the Squib's delusions rather than embarrassing her. Even still, she felt deeply disappointed.

"Pardon my asking, Ms. DeMontagne, but how on Earth did you _do_ this?" Mr. Burbage asked.

Charity gave him a warning glance—there was no need to tease the poor woman.

"I may not have magical abilities, Monsieur, but that doesn't mean I've not been given the ability to get magic done." Natalie winked at Charity's father and then gestured to the armoire. "Wizard number one configured that, and wizard number two—who stuck around considerably longer—helped me with this." Her manicured hands spread out to indicate the rest of the shop, and for the first time since stepping through the magicked piece of furniture, Charity took a good look around.

The shop was set up exactly as before, but the small bottles that littered the place were noticeably different. Some glowed, some billowed puffs of smoke, and others vibrated as if whatever was in them wanted desperately to get out. Charity didn't know how she hadn't noticed any of this before.

She spun in a slow circle, taking it all in. "This is amazing! Absolutely, positively amazing!"

"Ah, but I have not yet told you of what wizard number three did for me. We are in second dimension, oui? However, wizard number three gave me a window from first dimension into second—from there I can see and hear what is going on here and watch for any funny business."

"Yes, we saw you from back there," Charity confirmed. "But we didn't see the magical potions. Nothing was steaming or shaking."

"Ah yes," Natalie answered. "Through the window you may only see people, not objects."

"Can Muggles see the browsing wizards and witches too?"

"Oh yes. Is very important that they do. Wizard number three and I broke it off before he completed work on the window from second to first dimension. We cannot see back to the Muggle shop. I can generally hear the bell above the door ringing and other prominent noises through the opening of the armoire, but that is it. Since wizards and witches cannot see out of this dimension, it is a necessity that the Muggles can see in to avoid collisions. Now, we finish our conversation on the other side. Customers should be arriving at any moment."

The trio re-emerged from the armoire to find the shop still vacant, so Mr. Burbage and Charity took the opportunity to pummel Natalie with more questions about the alternate dimension. The conversation eventually moved on to the more mundane aspects of the business, and before the first customers of the day began to trickle in, Charity Burbage and Natalie DeMontagne kissed on both cheeks and became partners.

. . . . .

Charity's next order of business was to find an available apartment. She settled on one that was conveniently located walking distance from both Ma Jolie Petite and the Luxembourg Gardens. The rent was a bit higher than Charity had been hoping for, but her father insisted on covering the extra expense to upgrade to a two bedroom, saying the indulgence would make things more comfortable for Mrs. Burbage during her visits.

France and England had no free-flue agreement, so the move was done Muggle style, using professional movers since Charity couldn't ask any friends for help—as far as anyone other than her parents, Professor McGonagall, and Madame Pomfrey knew, Charity was taking the year off to travel. For good measure, Charity adopted an alias surname to make it more difficult for anyone to identify her as the witch the now-world- famous Severus Snape had hidden away. She would be known in Paris as Charity Prince; if her child couldn't bear the true name of his father, then at least she would provide a close proximity.

Natalie allowed Charity a couple of weeks to settle into her new place before starting work. After arranging the furniture and unpacking the boxes, Charity painted the second bedroom—what would be the nursery—a lemon yellow. The cheery color was the first thing her baby would see in the morning, and the last thing it would see at night. She was going to make sure Snape's child knew every bit of the happiness it's father had been missing in his own childhood.

. . . . .

Natalie's plan was to ease Charity into the business. In the months before the baby was born, she merely wanted her to work the floor, helping customers and ringing up sales. Charity started out making a few simple potions—nourishing lotions, soothing talcum powders and the like—with a promise that she'd learn more complex solutions in the future.

"I feel so useless," Charity protested one day from behind the register. A customer had just departed, leaving her and Natalie alone. "You brought me in to free up some of your time, but I've been working for two months, and you're still here all day, every day. I'm no help at all."

"Nonsense," Natalie called out from the back room behind the curtain. "How is it you think I made these potions and completed my paperwork with customers in and out all day? I couldn't do it until after I closed up the shop, and I was here till all hours. Now I get to leave with you and go home…or elsewhere. I have only you to thank for that."

Charity plopped herself onto a stool behind the counter, slid off her shoe, and began massaging her swollen foot. It had been an exceptionally busy day and she was more than ready for the typical lull of the late afternoon. Natalie tossed her a tube of her exclusive anti-inflammatory blend, which Charity gratefully accepted. There was no hiding her condition anymore. Even if she hadn't switched from robes to Muggle garments, her ever increasing belly would have been noticeable.

"Besides, you'll be leaving me soon enough for your maternity leave, so what is the sense for me to become dependent on you now, eh?"

Charity sighed. "I know." She was frustrated by having her life persistently in limbo. She wanted to get on with it already. The longer she waited to move forward, the more she felt like she was slipping back.

Although she'd hated to leave Hogwarts, she hoped that removing herself from the scenes of so many memories with Snape might ease the pain of missing him. But ever since arriving in Paris, the ache had only increased. She realized that walking those halls she'd once walked with him had, in fact, been a salve for her nerves, not an irritant. With nothing of Snape around her, she felt as if she'd abandoned him, as if somehow Snape's presence was in stone and mortar of the castle she'd left behind.

The precise memory of his face, his voice, his breath against her cheek didn't flash into her mind so readily in this foreign environment, and the absence of his regular, spontaneous visits to her mind left her feeling empty. She didn't want to forget the slightest aspect of him. Ever. That was why she treasured her dreams so very much. While sleeping, her unfettered subconscious let him in freely and recalled him in lifelike detail. These dreams were worth each and every tear they provoked in the waking hours that followed.

Away from the many prying eyes at Hogwarts, Charity was free to leave his framed picture out on her bedroom dresser, and she spent more time than ever staring into it. She refused to let his memory fade.

The bell on the front door tinkled, and a tall, cloaked figure stepped into the shop. A heavy hood hid any features from view, but the walk was distinctly masculine.

"Ah." Natalie stepped out from the back room. "I forgot he was coming today. You see—you are useful right now. Keep an eye on the shop while I make a quick trip to the magical section." In a louder voice she called out. "Bonjour, Monseiur. Je serai de retour dans un instant avec votre pommade."

Charity watched Natalie enter the other dimension and head straight to a cabinet across the room. The man waited for the shop owner to cross his path before proceeding, revealing his familiarity with the inner workings of the shop. Charity couldn't see his eyes, but she sensed his gaze on her and felt and odd prickling at the back of her neck.

The opening of the hood turned away from her as the man silently browsed the shop. Charity scolded herself for being so inconsiderate. Just because he dressed like a Dementor didn't mean she had to treat him like one.

"So, looks like the colder temperatures are here to stay," she offered conversationally.

The hood opening snapped toward her again. A rash of goosebumps broke out across her arms, but she kept a false smile plastered on her face. The figure slowly started moving forward, bending at the neck as if trying to peer more closely at Charity. Before Charity reached full panic, Natalie stepped out of the Armoire.

"Here you are Monseiur Savu. I should like to introduce you to my new assistant Charity Prince." The man's shoulders visibly stiffened. "Do not worry. Ms. Prince understands the value of discretion as well as any of us."

Natalie turned to Charity. "Will you ring him up, please—fifteen Galleons. I need to get back to my cauldron." Before disappearing behind the pink curtain, Natalie turned pointedly to the man and said. "I shall welcome you back to my shop in six months for your refill."

The man nodded and then dug a hand into his pocket, wherein Charity heard jingling. He dropped the coins onto the counter, and Charity caught a quick glimpse of horribly scarred fingers. The ointment he was purchasing had been in one of Ma Jolie's decorative bags, so Charity didn't know what it was, but she was willing to bet it healed scar tissue. And the hefty price indicated it was quite potent. Charity felt guilty for being frightened of the man earlier. The poor dear was obviously sensitive about his marred appearance. She wanted to offer comfort, but had no idea what to say.

A rough, gravelly voice startled her out of her ruminations. "You are with child?" he asked.

"I…yes, yes I am."

"When?" he rasped hoarsely. His voice sounded so unnatural, and Charity realized that his throat must have also been damaged in whatever terrible accident had done this to him.

"At Christmastime," she answered with a kind smile. "Perhaps you'll get to meet my baby when you return.

"I hope so."

.

.

**Author's Note:**

So, just wondering—have any of you picked up on the astounding brilliance of the shop's name yet? Hm? Anyone?

I'd like to say thanks to Metro K for giving me a bi on Thanksgiving week and letting me skip my turn. I daresay he won't be nearly so lenient on me going forward, so let's hope I can keep up with a schedule of updating every 2 – 3 weeks. ;)

Welcome new readers & reviewers – Lady Seiryu, harmonious, and myladypunk. I'm out of my mind excited to have you on board! And harmonious, I promise that I'm not usually so horribly late in responding to reviews – Tell her, everyone!

And now…the pressure's on Sir Metro…

-LiLa


	6. A baby, A bunny, and a Pair of Booties

Chapter 5

A Baby, a Bunny, and a Pair of Booties

In her dream, Snape sat behind her on the bed. She pressed her back into his chest as the contractions worked through her, bringing their child ever closer to birth. He stroked his long fingers across the side of her arm and told her what a good job she was doing, how brave and strong she was. She didn't believe a word of it, but gratefully reached up to grasp his biceps and dig her fingernails in when the pain became excruciating.

When it was all over, Madam Pomfrey laid the swaddled infant in Charity's arms while Snape's black eyes glittered with emotion. He'd remained steadfastly with Charity the entire time, and now wrapped his arms around hers to gently trace the tiny features of his child. He rested his chin on his wife's shoulder and whispered his gratitude for giving him a son.

In reality, it was Mrs. Burbage who joined Charity at the birth. Her presence was a comfort, although not nearly as reassuring as Snape's had been.

"My God, she looks like someone's putting the cruciatus curse on her!"

"Mrs. Burbage, if you can't remain calm—for your daughter's sake—I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to go into the other room," the midwife counseled. "Believe me when I tell you that she's the picture of composure compared to you on the day you brought her into this world."

Charity's mother closed her mouth and looked properly chagrined.

"I assume the reason you asked me to deliver your grandchild was because you trusted me, yes? So trust me, and do what I ask. Another contraction is starting—hold your daughter's hand and coach her through her breathing."

Mother and daughter inhaled and exhaled deeply until the contraction hit its peak, and then Charity nearly twisted her mother's hand off as she icksnayed the breathing and groaned the rest of the way down.

"Here." The midwife handed Mrs. Burbage a few small leaves. "Have her chew these. They'll help her relax between contractions."

Charity gobbled those leaves up as well as several more before her labor was finished. At last, the midwife delivered to the Burbage line another perfectly healthy baby girl.

"A girl!" Mrs. Burbage clapped her hands together.

"A girl?" Charity said, laughing. Snape continued to surprise her. The midwife took the infant away to wash and examine her, and Charity's eyes misted over. The love she had felt for the child while it grew in her womb suddenly magnified as she watched her squirm and cry.

"Good lungs," the midwife commented before wrapping the baby tightly in a flannel blanket and carrying her over to Charity. "Here's your daughter."

Charity gingerly accepted the warm bundle and blinked furiously to clear the tears that blurred her view of this most precious gift. The infant was exhausted from her ordeal and now slept peacefully in her mother's arms.

"She's got your nose," Mrs. Burbage murmured, and Charity didn't miss the note of relief. "What are you going to name her?"

"Her…" Charity's voice trailed off. She'd been so sure it was going to be a boy, she hadn't even thought of any girl names. "I think…Deanna."

. . . . .

Charity's mother stayed in Paris for a few weeks to help care for her grandchild, with Mr. Burbage joining them over Christmas and New Year's. But when the baby started sleeping for longer stretches at night and Charity had mastered nursing and diaper changing and promised to send an owl if she needed anything at all, Mrs. Burbage returned to England. She'd wanted to take Charity's pet rabbit back with her—said it was an unnecessary nuisance with the baby around—but Charity wouldn't hear of it. She couldn't abandon her faithful companion simply because she had a new love in her life.

But after her mother left and Charity looked around at her cramped apartment and got a whiff of the bunny litter that wasn't getting changed often enough, she realized that her mother had a point. She stroked the rabbit's silky black and white fur and got an idea. "I think I know just the place for you, my wittle pretty."

On a mild day at the end of January, Charity bundled up baby Deanna and took her to Ma Jolie Petite to meet Natalie. The shop was just about to close for lunch, and the only customers were a couple of witches browsing the magical section—as evidenced by their lack of response to her polite smile as she passed them.

"Ah, le bébé! I have something for you, ma cheri." Natalie snuffed out her cigarette and waved her hand through the air to clear the smoke, and then lifted a pink bag tied with a giant chiffon ribbon.

"Natalie, stop! You sent that huge basket over right after she was born. She's only six weeks old and you're already spoiling her."

"That is what fairy Squibmothers are for." Natalie smiled and handed the bag to Charity.

"Well, since you're in such a giving mood…when I come back to work, do you think we could give up a little space in the shop for my pet rabbit? The customers will love him, so he'll probably get more attention here than he does at home these days. And I'll make sure to clean out his cage twice a week and take care of all the feedings. What do you think?"

Natalie shook her head. "I'm not interested in running a petting zoo."

"Have I shown you the latest photo of him?" Charity pulled out a large wizard photo of her rabbit. It was sitting up on its back legs and wiping its adorable face with its front paws. Every once in a while it tilted its head to smooth a paw along one of its ears. The bunny was every bit as finicky about its appearance as Natalie was about hers, and Charity knew her partner wouldn't be able to resist the endearing display of cuteness and cleanliness.

Natalie's brow furrowed as she handed the picture back to Charity. "I do have some new potion recipes that require rabbit droppings."

"Perfect! You won't regret it!"

Natalie held a polished fingertip up in warning. "On a trial basis only. One whisker out of line, and he is gone. Now, I would much rather talk about this darling creature." She reached into the stroller and loosened Deanna's wrappings. "May I?"

"Of course."

Natalie lifted the baby and held her so that she could get a good look at her face. Deanna's dark eyes stared back at her. "What's this?" Natalie's thumb brushed a black curl peeking out from under the baby's cap, and Charity pulled the hat off completely to reveal a mass of black hair.

"The curls are mine; the color is her father's."

"The eyes are her father's too?"

"Mmm not quite, but the doctor said they'll likely darken even more as she gets older."

"Ah." Natalie winked at the baby as if they shared a secret.

Charity narrowed her eyes.

"What?" Natalie asked.

"Why did that 'ah' sound so smug?"

"Did it?"

"Yes, it did."

Natalie shrugged as she repositioned the baby more comfortably in her slender arms. "Is always a good feeling to solve a riddle."

"A riddle?"

"Oui. You tell me nothing of this mystery father's identity, and so it is a riddle for me to solve."

Charity's eyes widened. "And you solved it?"

"Did I?" Natalie raised a pencil thin eyebrow.

"Uh, well, I don't know. Wh—who…" Without realizing she was doing it, Charity had taken Deanna from Natalie and was now protectively cradling her child.

Natalie's mouth softened into a sympathetic frown. "Forget this. We do not need to discuss it."

"Yes, we do," Charity answered, stroking her cheek across Deanna's soft, warm curls. "I'm sorry. I overreacted. It's just…it's been my secret for so long, and you caught me off guard. Who—who do you think it was?"

"The double-agent wizard, Severus Snape."

Charity's swallowed to relieve the tightness in her throat. "How did you figure it out?"

"Not too difficult. I know your history—attendez un moment."

The two shoppers had emerged from the magical section. Natalie rang up their purchases and then followed them to the door to turn around the closed sign. When she returned, Charity clung more tightly than ever to Snape's child.

"The few times you did speak of the father, it was always with a measure of sadness—not bitterness, as with a break-up. So I conjectured he was no longer with us. And I've seen Monsieur Snape's pictures in the paper and read of his reputation prior to his death." Natalie's characteristic smirk twitched at her crimson lips. "It had all the makings of a classic bad boy/good girl romance. Then he saved your life and hid you away in his love nest—the attraction must have become irresistible."

"There was a little bit more to it than that," Charity said with a small laugh. Now that Natalie had said all this aloud, being outted didn't seem nearly so frightening.

"You loved him."

Charity nodded. "I still do."

. . . . .

The following weeks passed quickly, and when it came time for Charity to return to work, Mrs. Burbage didn't like the idea of her granddaughter being exposed to germs in the shop at such a young age, and so came back to Paris to babysit for those first few weeks. Charity thought her mother was being overly cautious, but was glad for the extra help—it was going to take some juggling to be able to keep up with the work at Ma Jolie as well as care for the baby at the same time. She didn't work Saturdays, and so Mrs. Burbage was able to spend the weekends in England with her husband, but those mid-week evenings became special times for the three generations of Burbage women.

Charity would feed the baby while Mrs. Burbage made dinner for the two adults, and then they'd marvel at how verbose and intelligent little Deanna was as she cooed and gurgled nonsense to them while they ate. After cleaning up the dinner things, Charity would rock the baby to sleep and hold her for a while, not caring what kind of bad habits she might be setting that she'd have to break later, and Mrs. Burbage would knit. Correction—Mrs. Burbage would _attempt_ to knit. Deanna had yet to receive a pair of homemade booties. It wasn't that the knitting itself was bad—it was very even and tight, as a matter of fact—it was just that the resulting shape and size were never quite right.

"Good heavens," Mrs. Burbage commented one night as she held up a rather large stocking-looking thing. "This would fit your father!"

"Dad might like a pair of…pink…socks…?"

Mrs. Burbage let out a disgusted sigh and then flung the mammoth bootie into the air with her wand. The sock spun and flipped as an ever-increasing length of pink yarn pulled from it and danced around the room. She gave one final twirl and flick of her wand, and the whole thing landed in a pile at her feet.

"Mum, all of her jammies have feet in them anyhow. Do you know what she could use? A blanket. A nice, square blanket."

"Don't patronize me, dear," Mrs. Burbage chided as she picked up her needles and started again.

Charity chuckled and began humming softly to Deanna, who was fast asleep and breathing out warm gusts of air onto her mother's neck.

"It's bad enough I can't tell anyone about my gorgeous grandbaby, and now I can't even knit her a decent pair of booties. And that's not to mention all the lies I've had to tell people about where you are and where I'm going when I come to visit. I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to hold off Oliver Wood. The poor boy seems on the verge of calling in his own team of bloodhounds."

"Ollie's called for me?"

"Heavens yes. You've gotten a couple of owls from your Preppy mates too. I forgot to bring the letters. Ah well, next time. Did I tell you Miss Marple had quite the mystery going on over at her place? It ended up only being a garden gnome with a penchant for Frank Sinatra, but for a while there…"

Mrs. Burbage continued to prattle on about the goings on in the neighborhood while Charity thought about Oliver Wood. She'd done the disappearing act on him once again and wouldn't blame him if he wrote her off completely. Even still, she was glad to hear he hadn't. At least, not yet.

When her mother seemed to have run out of stories for the evening and the room fell silent, Charity told her, "If Ollie Wood calls again, it's okay to tell him where I am."

"Oh, he'll call," Mrs. Burbage stated confidently before holding up her knitting for an examination. "Ugh, for Merlin's sake!"

The knits and pearls once again flew up into the air.


	7. Chapter 6: An Unexpected Visitor

Chapter 6

An Unexpected Visitor

Springtime in Paris was magical. Even without the potions. It seemed surreal to Charity that it was only a year earlier that she'd gone there to escape the monotony of London while she waited for the end of Voldemort's war. The robust gardens and the flowing fountains and the crisp, blue sky once again called to her, and she took little Deanna on many mini-field trips in the city.

Tulips and daffodils and hyacinths abounded throughout Paris, and Charity had never been happier to live close to the majestic Jardin du Luxembourg. She went for long walks, pushing Deanna in her pram and looking longingly at the outdoor cafés as she passed them. But she'd already learned that "sitting leisurely" and "baby in tow" did not go together. Deanna was much more content when they were on the move.

One day they ventured onto the Metro and took it north where they climb the hill to Sacre Couer. Deanna seemed hyper aware of everything as her mother pointed out the various artists and street performers in the Montmartre neighborhood. Even as young as a couple weeks old, Deanna had demonstrated a serious demeanor, with her tiny features often pulled together in a concerned expression. Charity continued her mother's practice of regularly kissing the baby's furrowed brow and telling her not to worry, but the expression persisted. So she was delighted when her daughter's eyes opened a little wider and the customary crease between her eyebrows disappeared as she took in the sights and sounds of the former haunt of Muggle artists such as Salvador Dali, Picasso, and Toulouse-Lautrec.

They walked by the bookstore that housed the entrance to France's version to Diagon Alley—Carré Magique. Charity's heart beat faster when she thought of how much Deanna would have to look at there. Even full grown witches and wizards became like giddy little children in the care-free magical square. It was impossible not to when surrounded by ribbons of paint in every color flying out of wands and onto canvasses...as well as the occasional pedestrian. But before she pushed the stroller over the threshold of the store, Charity came to her senses.

Carré Magique was too touristy. There would no doubt be vacationing British magicals in there, and she couldn't risk running into someone who might recognize her. Not while she was pushing around Snape's child. She'd gone through all this trouble to shield Deanna from the British tabloids and couldn't let it all be for nothing. But she didn't walk immediately away. The magical square called to her.

Last year she'd been in very much the same predicament—she'd wanted to go in, but had to hide herself away, deny who she was. The loneliness of those days flooded back into her, except now it was worse. Because Snape wouldn't be waiting at her apartment when she returned. Tears stung the corners of her eyes, and she pushed the stroller quickly away. She wouldn't cry. She had Snape's child now. Her child. How could she be lonely? But she was.

. . . . .

By late April Deanna was eating solid foods and thus taking longer and more predictable naps, which made bringing her into work much easier. Mother and daughter fell into a pattern—they typically took a morning walk around Luxembourg Gardens before going into the shop, where Deanna would amuse herself in her jumpy for an hour, then eat lunch and take a long nap. When she woke, she was usually in a fairly happy mood and saved cranky time for when she was home alone with mommy in the evening.

As had become the routine, the baby was taking her late morning nap in the back while Charity minded the store. Natalie was in the Magical section helping a handsome young wizard. He'd come in looking for concentrated herbs to enhance his physical training, but he was now in the adult section where Natalie was showing him various lotions and gels to enhance performance in other, more personal, areas. Charity couldn't hear them, but Natalie appeared to be describing the function of each product in enough detail to make the guy blush, despite his obvious efforts to maintain a cocky and flirtatious smirk on his face.

Charity was distracted from watching them when a tall, cloaked figure stepped from behind a tall cabinet and moved toward her. She hadn't heard him come in.

"Bonjour, Monsieur Savu. Has it been six months already?" she asked.

He dipped his hood in acknowledgment and came over to the counter where he loomed over Charity. "Male or female?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.

"Pardon?" Charity replied.

"The baby."

"Oh. It's a girl." She smiled, trying to deflect attention from his awkward manners.

"She is here?"

"Yes. She's taking her nap now, so I'm sorry you can't meet her. Perhaps next time. "

He reached a dark sleeve over the counter and let his long, scarred fingers slide out to lightly grasp Charity's forearm. It took all her will to not pull back from his cold touch.

"I'd like very much to see her." The roughness in his voice was gone, and he now spoke in a smooth whisper.

The gentle murmur relaxed her, and she looked up into the shadowy hood. Through the darkness she could see his eyes as their watery surfaces reflected the shop's light. They were intently focused on her.

"You vill show her to me."

"I…" She would. Of course she would. She couldn't think of why she'd ever thought not to.

"Ah, Monsieur Savu!" Natalie's voice cut in as she re-entered the Muggle portion of the store. "I was just bringing your order up front so I'd be ready for you this time"

Savu released Charity's arm, and his eyes seemed to retreat into the depths of his hood and disappear.

"You're here considerably earlier than usual," Natalie said. "I assume this is all you need today?"

The hood again dipped down and then up. Natalie came around the counter and began ringing up the sale, and Charity was glad of it. Her brain felt slightly fuzzy, as if she'd just woken, and she wasn't sure she could work all the buttons on the Muggle register just then. Something was very strange about Monsieur Savu.

He paid for his product and left without another word.

"Are you all right?" Natalie asked Charity.

"Oh, yes, fine. It's just…I don't mean to be rude—I swear it isn't about his appearance—but something makes me uncomfortable about him."

"You have good instincts," Natalie replied. The little bell rang over the door as a new customer entered. "Bonjour. Let me know if I can be of assistance, s'il vous plait."

The customer nodded her appreciation and stayed up front to peruse the Muggle offerings.

Charity took the opportunity to ask quietly. "What happened to him? How did he get those scars?"

Natalie pressed her lips together and shook her head. "Eh, eh, eh. You know I do not tell my customers' secrets. If I did, then they might as well take their business to the gossip shops in Carré Magique."

Charity very much respected her partner's discretion…even still, she wanted to know more about Savu. "You tell me my instincts to be wary are good, so don't you think you ought to explain why?"

Natalie hesitated for a moment, and then responded in measured words. "Monsieur Savu and I have an understanding. You don't need to worry. He comes for his supply every six months and that is that. You shouldn't ever need to have any other interaction with him—you should _avoid_ any other interaction with him."

Charity felt an odd tugging at her gut. As if there was something she was forgetting, something she should tell Natalie. But no, all he had done was come over to the counter, and then Natalie had immediately arrived with his order. That was all. She was being silly.

The handsome wizard Natalie had been helping earlier stepped out of the armoire with a sly grin and an armload of bottles and tubes.

The shop owner's lips curved into a sultry smile. "My, my you're an ambitious one." Natalie spoke in her native tongue, as she did with most of her customers. Charity, while not fluent at speaking French, could understand it fairly well and so was able to follow her partner's conversations.

The wizard dropped his load on the counter and fixed his startlingly blue eyes on Natalie. "Still think you can handle helping me out with a test run? On _all_ of this?"

Natalie began ringing the items up while she let out a low chuckle under her breath. When she came to a black glass jar, the laugh died in her throat, and she paused in her action to take a large gulp. It was the first time Charity had seen her partner anything other than cool and in complete control.

Natalie shook her head slightly and completed the sale. When she handed the young Casanova his bag, she maintained her own grip on it as she told him, "Don't overexert yourself this afternoon, and eat a big lunch. There will be not time for eating or resting after I arrive…and I promise you'll need every ounce of your strength."

Now it was his turn to gulp, and Charity was very glad when Deanna started to coo in her crib, necessitating her mother's timely exit.

. . . . .

Later that same night, Charity settled Deanna into her crib, and debated whether to read or watch the telly during the hour or so before she too would drift off to sleep. She was leaning toward climbing into bed and reading when there was a knock on her door.

The knock startled her more than such an ordinary occurrence should have, but nobody ever came to visit her, and she couldn't imagine who it could be. She moved cautiously to the door, and cracked it open just enough to peek through. She kept her arm flexed, ready to slam the door shut again if need be. But when she saw who it was, her shock left her arm numb. She knew this man. And she couldn't believe he'd show up at her home.

When she recollected herself and the reality of who stood in wait outside her door fully registered, she screamed. Then she flung open the door and leaped into the arms of Oliver Wood.

"Charity Burbage," he manage to choke out through the tight squeeze she had around his neck. "How are you?"

The sound of that familiar voice combined with the feel of his strong hands pressed against her back, holding her up, was too much. All her loneliness of the past several months climbed to the surface, and her resolve to ignore it crumbled. She buried her head in his neck and let the tears flow, clinging to him as she sobbed, unable to do anything else. She hadn't realized exactly how lonely she'd been until she'd stopped trying to suppress it.

Oliver held her close and didn't say a word. While she wept, he carried her into the apartment, shut the door, and brought her over to the couch. When she finally calmed down, she found herself curled on his lap. His shirt collar was saturated with her tears.

"Oh, Ollie, I'm so sorry. I just…" Her words were broken by a tiny hiccup in her breathing, and Oliver shushed her with his thumb over her lips.

He brought his other had up to gently wipe away her tears. "There's no need to apologize. You don't belong here. You belong home in England. Let's pack up right now. I'll bring you home myself."

Charity wriggled her mouth away from his hand and said, "No, Ollie. I like it here. I do. I…I'm still adjusting, but I _will_ adjust. And I suppose I'm still the victim of hormones." She watched him tentatively as she said the next sentence, because she wasn't sure how much her mother may have told him. "The baby's only four months old."

Oliver gave her a soft, reassuring smile, letting her know he'd heard the news and didn't judge her. Of course he didn't. "Where is she? I'd love to meet her."

Charity's still-moist eyes glittered when she smiled back at him. "She's sleeping right now, but come on. You can see her."

She stood up and grasped Oliver's hand to lead him to the baby's room. She stopped just inside the doorway, and Oliver stepped in close behind her to peer at the crib, where they could just make out the baby's tiny, sleeping form by the glow of a dragon nightlight. Charity felt Oliver's free hand slide around to her abdomen and his chin rest on the top of her head as he took it all in.

"So she's the reason you were dizzy that day, back at Hogwarts," he said in a low murmur.

"Mhm."

"Did you know?"

"No. I found out after you left."

"Mmm."

They stood quietly, watching Deanna's chest rhythmically rise and fall, and Charity relaxed into Oliver's chest. They had so much to talk about, but for the moment, she simply wanted to stand there, surrounded by her friend from home. Something about Oliver always made her feel safe and protected, and that's exactly what she needed right then. He didn't seem in any rush to move from their current position either.


	8. Chapter 7: Brûlé par la Peinture

Chapter 7

Brûlé par la Peinture

.

Oliver settled onto the sofa while Charity poured them each a goblet of pinot noir. "I still can't believe you're here," she said as she handed him his glass and then made herself comfortable in an armchair across from him. "How've you been?"

"Aside from being worried about you?"

Charity raised an eyebrow because she'd already profusely apologized for pulling the disappearing act again, and he'd claimed to have forgiven her.

He gave her a quick wink and moved on. "I've been getting along well enough. Have you been following Quidditch?"

"Er, sorry, no. I've had a few other things going on. But please, fill me in on what I've been missing."

"Gladly—Puddlemere's having an excellent season! We just left Brussels licking their wounds, and next we're on to humiliate Nuremburg. We have a bit of a break between games, so I figured I might as well stay on the continent to see you."

"I'm glad you did.' Charity smiled. "How's the captaincy going?"

"I'm not captain anymore." Oliver shrugged, and his face melted into a disappointed pout. "Fitzwilliam recovered."

"Aw, what a terrible shame," Charity teased. "You'd think he'd at least have had the decency to let his arm fall off from gangrene or something."

Oliver's full lips twisted into a smirk. "Saucy as ever, I see. Your local Versailles girls are doing very well too, you know—they've become our biggest competition."

"Really? I'm surprised my dad hasn't mentioned it."

"I'll be sure to get him tickets next time we meet up…er, assuming we get the fans under better control, that is."

"Oh, right—the near-riots at last year's Quidditch World Cup. What can they do about it?"

"For this season, ramp up security—auror involvement. But for a longer-term solution, there's talk of diversification. Right now, Quidditch rules require that players for each team citizens of the region for which they play, and it's created an intense sort of patriotism that's not altogether healthy. So when the fans come out to the Quidditch pitch, they're not simply supporting their teams, they're defending their entire country, and it seems to be the anti-cultural slurs that lead to the exchange of wand-fire in the stands. So the ministry thinks that if they open up team selection to a European-wide draft—mixing players from a variety of nationalities on the teams—perhaps animosity in the stands will be quelled somewhat."

"Hmm, I wonder if it would work. At any rate, it'd sure be nice to see us magicals take a queue from the Muggles and work toward opening up worldwide interaction."

"Definitely. But enough about sports and politics—fill me in on Charity Burbage, Parisian entrepreneur and mother extraordinaire."

Charity laughed. "Hardly extraordinary. But I do like being a mum."

Oliver nodded. "You seem well suited to it. I mean, you must be nurturing to have become such a favourite with the unruly mob of students at Hogwarts. And you can't be anything but sweet, what with all the chocolate you consume."

"Oliver Wood! You're not ever going to let me forget that, are you?"

"Not likely." He beamed at her with a Cheshire grin.

"So I take it my mum has told you about the potions shop."

"She did, and I'd love to see it—I'm spending the night in Carré Magique, so I could stop by tomorrow if you'll be around."

"That would be lovely. I'll be there. So…what else has my mother told you?"

"Besides about the baby and the boutique, she explained why you felt it would be too difficult to stay on at Hogwarts. And that you wanted a fresh start in Paris…"

"Did she tell you _why_ I wanted a fresh start?"

Oliver wrinkled his forehead, thinking. "Nope. 'Fresh start' was all she said."

"So…you don't know who the father is?"

Oliver's eyes flicked down to watch the purple liquid swirl across the sides of his glass as he began to self consciously tilt the goblet back and forth. "No."

"Ollie, look at me. I'm not ashamed of what I'm going to tell you, and—although you might be surprised by it—you shouldn't feel awkward. You're my friend, and I want you to know."

He lifted his eyes to meet hers. There was something tentative in the steel blue of his irises. It wasn't fear exactly, but he certainly didn't seem eager for the information.

"Deanna's father is Professor Severus Snape."

She watched the Adam's apple in Wood's thick neck slide up and down as he took a slow gulp. His eyes went back down, and after a long pause, he asked, "Did you want this?"

"Did I want what?"

"Did you want…Snape. Did you want to have his baby?"

"I…honestly, I hadn't thought as far as having his baby. But I wanted him—I loved him. I still love him. I always will. And while it was completely unexpected, finding out I was carrying his child was the best news I'd ever heard."

Oliver kept his eyes down, but his chin began bobbing up and down, indicating he was absorbing everything she was telling him.

"I'd been so miserable, so lonely. Something inside me just wasn't healing, and it felt like it never would. Then Deanna made her presence known, and everything changed. I felt hope again, and I stopped wishing…wishing that he'd never saved me, never let me see the side of him that I fell in love with so completely."

Throughout her speech, Oliver's chin slowed, but continued an almost automatic up and down movement. Charity didn't notice. She'd never before shared the depth of her feelings for Snape with anyone else, and saying it out loud was both comforting and taxing. It absorbed all her focus.

"I still miss him, of course. It still hurts. I suppose it seems silly, since our love affair was so brief, but it was real, and I don't imagine most people in this world ever experience such an intense connection with another person. It's the kind of love that doesn't go away just because we can't be together. But having Deanna…she's stolen my heart, Ollie. Almost from the first flutter. And it's as if my affection for her poured in and covered the wound like a salve—it still aches, but she makes it manageable. Does that make sense?"

Oliver lifted his eyes to look at her. "Perfect sense. I can't for the life of me picture you with Snape—sorry, just being honest—but it's obvious how much you care for him. And now I'm doubly sorry for all you've been though. You didn't deserve any of this."

"Stop." Charity shook her head back and forth, knocking loose a few warm droplets from the blur of tears that had gathered. "Don't feel sorry for me, Ollie. It'll be fine. Like I told you, Deanna's already making things better."

Oliver seemed to accept her reassurances, and after a few silent moments, they went on to talk about other things, updating each other on what else had been going on in their worlds. Oliver eventually returned to the topic of Snape. Charity could tell he was still trying to process that relationship. He left soon after finishing his wine so Charity could get her rest, and they hugged goodbye with a promise to see each other the next day.

. . . . .

Oliver strode into Ma Jolie Petite about an hour after opening. Charity had been minding the store herself since Natalie had started taking an occasional morning off.

"Well, look who's bright eyed and bushy tailed this morning," he said, walking directly over to Deanna in her jumpy. She'd been busy bouncing up and down, but now stopped to study the hulking stranger in front of her. She gave her pacifier a couple hard sucks as the crease between her eyebrows deepened.

Charity smiled and came over to crouch next to her daughter. "Deedee, this is Oliver Wood."

Deanna kept her concerned gaze on Oliver while she held her arms out to her mother, who scooped her up and stood.

"I brought you something," Oliver said enticingly and pulled a stuffed elephant out from behind his back. Deanna's eyes popped wide, and then crinkled when Oliver gently tickled her nose with the tip of the Elephant's trunk. The corners of her lips peeked out from behind the plastic of her pacifier when she gurgled a tiny laugh.

Just as Charity and Oliver joined her in laughter, a customer approached the counter. "Oh dear," said Charity, her eyes flicking between the customer and the baby.

"I'll take her," offered Oliver. When Charity hesitated, he added, "Come on, she and I are best friends now."

During the handoff, Deanna's smile retreated behind the plastic but she didn't protest. Charity rang up the customer, and out of the corner of her eye watched Oliver interact with her baby. His voice had risen to about six octaves too high while he bobbed the elephant's head all over the place. Deanna watched the elephant with fascination and then giggled uncontrollably whenever it ducked down to tickle her belly.

The bell over the door jingled and Natalie stepped in. She carried a huge take away cup of coffee and kept her large, black sunglasses on as she walked through the shop—a sure sign she'd had too much wine and too little sleep the night before. Nevertheless, she was impeccably put together and glided forward as gracefully as ever.

She moved past Oliver and a squealing Deanna without even seeming to notice them, but when she stepped behind the counter, she asked, "Who's that gorgeous man with your child, and why is he torturing her?"

"Oliver Wood." Charity smiled at the customer as she handed her the bag of products she'd just purchased. "Have a nice day."

"The Quidditch player?" Natalie slid her glasses down her nose to get a better look at him.

"You follow Quidditch?"

"I follow Quidditch _players_. How is it you know him?"

"He was a student at Hogwarts."

"Ah." Natalie pushed her glasses firmly back over her eyes. "Why is he here…and would you please tell him to stop making the child screech so?"

"It's called a laugh, not a screech," Charity chided. "Did you have fun last night?"

"What I remember of it." The shop owner slid open a drawer and pulled out a tiny vial. In it was a powdery solution to cure her hangover. Natalie sighed and then flinched as a sharp cry rang out. "You can't deny it this time—_that_ was a screech."

Deanna's pacifier had slipped out of her mouth onto the floor, and Oliver looked helplessly toward Charity.

"Uh oh." She ran over and took back her daughter. "Don't worry, Ollie. It's her lunchtime. She always gets a little disconcerted right before. I should've warned you. Here, why don't I feed her and you have a look around the store, okay? Nat, want to show him how to get into Section M?" She turned and whispered to Ollie "'Section M' is for magicals only."

Charity situated Deanna in her high chair while Natalie took Oliver through the armoire and pointed out a few things before leaving him to explore the shop on his own.

"Is this a problem that he discovered you here?" Natalie asked as she approached Charity.

"Oh no, not at all. My mum told him where to find me. He's a friend; I trust him. He won't alert the British press."

Natalie nodded and then went to the other end of the counter to light her cigarette. By the time Oliver returned, she'd taken off her sunglasses, indicating the solution had kicked in. By this time Deanna was just about done eating, and she was beginning to show signs of drowsiness.

"It's a great shop," Ollie commented.

"Thanks. It's so nice of you to stop by," Charity said as she wiped Deanna's face and picked her up again. The baby laid her head on her mother's shoulder and let her heavy eyelids fall shut. "I'm glad you got to see her while she was awake."

"She's a beauty. Dark like her father, pretty like her mother. So…I guess I should get going. My schedule's going to be hectic for the next several weeks…but maybe after that—"

"You have a train to catch?" Natalie interrupted from the end of the counter.

"No, just going to apparate to Germany in a few hours."

"A few hours? Then this is easy. L'enfant is asleep. I stay with her; you two go out and have fun for a couple hours. Simple, oui?"

Charity thought she was joking, and gave a light laugh.

"You think I cannot do it?" Natalie sounded indignant. "She sleeps. I ring up customers. It is nothing."

"What if she wakes up?"

"She's a princess when she wakes from her nap. I smile at her and pick her up and we have an excellent time. Besides, she won't wake up. She sleeps three hours, you go for two." Natalie snuffed out her cigarette and walked over to pull a now slumbering Deanna from her mother's reluctant arms. "See, she is sleeping like a bébé. Go. Go. Leave now so you get back before she awakes."

Charity didn't want to leave Deanna—Mrs. Burbage was the only one she'd ever left her with before—but when she glanced over at Ollie and saw the anticipation in his smile, she relented. The thought of two hours of free time in the city with her friend was enticing, after all.

"You send a dove if you need anything at all," Charity instructed. Parisians preferred doves over owls as they were more stylish and compact and drew less attention than clunky owls in the urban setting.

Natalie rolled her eyes and sang a soft lullaby as she strolled toward the crib in back, the gentleness in her tone reassuring Charity. "_Frère Jacques, frère Jacques,Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous? Sonnez les matines. Sonnez les matines. Din, dan, don. Din, dan, don."_

"After you," Oliver said to Charity, and the pair was out in the sunny streets.

"Hmm, two hours in Paris. Where would you like to go?" Charity asked.

"Are you hungry? I was hoping to grab a bite at Brûlé sur le Steak before I leave town. They have the best baguettes."

"I haven't heard of it."

"Well then, you must not've been in the Carré for awhile."

Charity's face fell. "Oh, I didn't realize that's where it was. I've actually been avoiding the place. I'm afraid of being recognized by visiting wizards."

"Charity, you can't hide forever. And what's the harm? Everyone thinks you've taken time off to travel, so if anyone recognizes you, we'll tell 'em you're passing through Paris."

"How do I explain the baby?"

"What baby? She's back at the shop—and she's nobody else's business."

Charity's mouth slowly spread into a grin as she realized he was right. But she still felt nervous, and it must've shown.

"You worry too much. It'll be fine, promise." He took one of her hands in his and squeezed it. "_Promise_."

She gripped his hand back and exhaled. "Let's do it."

She tried not to second guess herself as they made their way across the city to Montmartre, but her blood pressure had most definitely risen by the time they reached the shabby bookstore, and her heart thumped wildly as they crossed the threshold into the magical square. Oliver grabbed her hand again as soon as they were through, and they laughed as they ran and ducked out of the way of flying paint balls. They made it to the bistro and chose a seat on the sidewalk under the awning, where they could feel like part of the action while remaining a safe distance from renegade pallets.

As they dined on sandwiches, Charity recounted tales of previous visits to the square when she'd been a teenager—being back there had flooded her with many happy memories—and Oliver told her about some of the more exotic magical city centers he'd come across during his Quidditch tours. Toward the end of their lunch, a street peddler approached them. He held up a pair of silver earrings shaped like tiny Eiffel Towers. When he tapped them with his wand, they began to sparkle, as if lit by hundreds of tiny, flickering lights.

"Do you think they're pretty?" Oliver asked.

"Pretty tacky," Charity giggled.

"Hmm, even still, I don't have any time left to shop, and I think Penny might like them. I'll take a pair," he said to the vendor and exchanged a few Knuts for the earrings.

"Who's Penny?" Charity asked.

"Penelope Johnstone. A girl from back home. She's gotten a little, er, testy with me being gone so much, so maybe these'll make up for it."

Charity didn't understand why she felt surprised at learning Oliver had a girlfriend. Of course a thoughtful, fun, good looking, successful, young man like Ollie would have a girl back home. Why wouldn't she have realized that? Then she realized why she hadn't realized.

"Why didn't you mention her before?" she asked.

Oliver shrugged. "I haven't seen you since last summer, and she and I only started dating last fall. I think you'll admit you and I have had plenty of other topics to fill our conversation since I showed up last night."

"True. Well, I've got about thirty minutes before I should start making my way back to the shop. Care to brave the artists?"

About half way around the circle of canvases, a bright orange ball of paint smashed and splattered across the side of Oliver's face.

"Blimey!" he shouted as he tried to wipe it off, only smearing it more deeply into his blonde hair in the process. "I swear, a bludger to the head is nothing compared to these devils."

"You know what would make a better souvenir for Penny than those awful earrings? A portrait of you, just as you are right now," Charity teased.

Before the words were fully out of her mouth, a painter appeared directly in front of her. He wasn't only a painter—he was a mime. His white face and pursed lips remained motionless while he held his brush in the air and swirled it around. A huge fountain of yellow paint rose up from his pallet and swooped toward Charity, but the mime brandished his brush, and the blob of yellow froze in the air, just inches from Charity's face. He flicked his eyes back and forth between his brush and Oliver, implying that either Oliver agree to the portrait, or his companion be turned into a human banana.

"Fine," Oliver groaned.

The mime gave him an exaggerated smile and a bow and immediately began painting the canvas on his portable easel while Oliver shook his head at Charity, who only mocked him with a smile full of faux innocence.

"So what's Penny like?" Charity asked to pass the time while the mime painted.

"She's nice. Fun to be with. Pretty. Enjoys quidditch—good at it too."

"How did you meet her?"

"We were set up by a mutual friend."

The yellow paint, which had continued to hover next to Charity made a sudden jab toward her. She gasped and leaned into Oliver to move away from it, but tripped over his shoes fell backwards. He caught her and held her there for a few moments while the artist commanded the yellow paint back into his brush and then started stabbing at the canvas with more fervor than before. He finished the work a few minutes after Charity was back on her feet and turned the newly created piece toward them.

It wasn't just Oliver in the picture. Charity was with him, and the painter had captured them in the exact moment Oliver had caught her. It was clearly their faces, but the pose and other details had been modified. In the painting, Wood had slipped an arm behind Charity's knees and scooped her up, while she lay back with her eyes closed. He wore a white shirt, unbuttoned, and leaned forward, staring down at Charity with an almost angry intensity.

Charity then noticed that her outfit had also been changed—in the painting she wore a red gown with white ruffles along the bodice, which had slipped down to reveal a risqué amount of cleavage. Her chin was tilted upward so that her pouting lips reached toward Oliver's, as if unconsciously beckoning for a kiss that he appeared to very much want to give her. They were surrounded by burning orange and yellow strokes of paint.

"Gone with the Wind," Charity said, and the mime mimicked applause.

"Gone with…huh?" Oliver asked.

"It's a Muggle love story. He replaced the characters with us."  
Oliver continued to examine the picture and raised one eyebrow doubtfully. "I'm not sure Penny will care for this at all."

Charity couldn't disagree.

"Well, I like it. Here you go, sir." Wood stuck some coins in the mime's outstretched glove, flicked a drying charm over the canvas with his wand, and rolled up the painting so he could slide it into a cardboard tube the mime had magically produced. By then it was time for Charity to head back to Ma Jolie, so they tipped the Nettoyer Sorcière at the square's exit and thanked her for cleaning them up, then made their way to the Metro station where Charity would catch a train back to her part of the city.

"A love story…so this guy gets her in the end?" Oliver questioned while they waited on the platform.

"Uhm, yes. But…it's not exactly a fairy tale ending."

Oliver's forehead wrinkled. "But if he gets her…?"

The train pulled in, and Charity reached up to cup his jaw. "Read the book, Ollie. And come to see me again. Any time. Good luck in Nuremburg." She stepped onto the train and turned to wave as it pulled away.

. . . . .

**Authors Notes:**

*whew* Finally an update. One thing that delayed me this time was that I was bumming around London :) and even got to visit some of Charity's haunts from when she was a faux Muggle, including the British Museum, where she worked, and Doughty Street, where she lived. Guess who else lived on Doughty Street for a wHile...Charles Dickens! Pretty cool, huh?

Thanks for reading & thanks for reviewing. :) And thanks, Metropolis Kid, for staying on me sorry bum...now is my turn to get on yours. ;P

-LiLa


	9. Chapter 8: Monsieur Savu Revealed

Chapter 8

Monsieur Savu Revealed

Summer in Paris came and went, and Charity could hardly believe it when Natalie had brought in a plate of delicate petit fours to celebrate the witch's one year anniversary at Ma Jolie Petite. By then Deanna had perfected the art of crawling, and by mid-September she began experimenting with pulling herself up to standing, necessitating a baby-proofing of the shop. Glass bottles were relegated to higher shelves, electrical outlets were covered, and all unsteady furniture was replaced with sturdier pieces that the baby couldn't topple.

Quidditch had kept Oliver Wood busy, but after his visit he and Charity resumed a regular correspondence via fowl-post, and now that the Quidditch season had ended, he and Penny were planning a visit to Paris soon. Meanwhile, another face from Charity's past had resurfaced—Lenny Henderson, the reporter who'd set her up with the job. He'd called on Natalie fairly regularly over the warm summer months, and his appetite for the Frenchwoman only seemed to increase, so Charity wasn't surprised to see him walk past the big front window that October morning.

What did surprise her was the sound of Natalie gasping and dropping to her knees behind the counter. She looked up at Charity as the bell over the door rang and mouthed _I'm not here_.

"Hey there, poppet," Lenny said. "I've brought you some arugula." He held a few green leaves up to the bars of Bnickel's cage, and the black and white rabbit greedily pulled them through the bars and munched away.

"That was very nice, Lenny," Charity said, hoping that a little extra sweetness would make up for the lie she was about to tell him.

The rumpled Scottsman flashed her a lopsided grin and replied, "What can I say? I've got a thing for brunettes. Speaking of which, is Nat around?"

"Not right now," Charity lied and gave her partner a subtle kick.

"Oh. When do you expect her back?"

"Eh," Charity glanced down, and Natalie shook her head. "N—not any time soon, I'm afraid."

"Ah well, I'll wait for her at her place then. Nice seeing you. Glad this shop gig's worked out so well for you."

As he backed toward the door, Natalie yanked vigorously on Charity's long, broomstick skirt and mouthed _No, no, no!_

"Um…she….she's out of town, actually. Prague. There's a big lotions tradeshow there, and she's keeping up on Muggle trends, so…looks like you won't be able to catch her this trip."

Natalie gratefully patted Charity, who shot her a dirty look. She was slightly disturbed by how easily the lying had come to her.

Even still, Lenny persisted. "She must've just left; I could swear her perfume is still in the air."

He approached the counter as he said this, and Charity squeaked when she felt Natalie scurry under her skirt and nestle between her legs.

"Are you all right?" Lenny asked.

"Fine. Fine. Yes, I'm fine."

"I told her I'd be in town this week—didn't she say anything?"

"No. I'm sorry. She must've forgotten." That time she was telling the truth.

Lenny's forehead pinched, and his eyes dropped. They seemed to gaze through the glass countertop and fix on the unnatural bulge in Charity's skirt.

She shifted her weight as much as she could and asked a little too quickly, "Is there any sort of message you'd like to leave for her?"

He pulled a small, thin box out of his pocket and fingered it. Charity noticed the imprint of a well known jewelry shop. After a few moments of silent contemplation, he slid the box back into his pocket and said, "Just tell her…tell her I said I'll see her around." His eyes flicked again toward Charity's skirt before he gave the witch a small, sad smile and turned to leave. As he walked across the shop, he added, "I hope she has fun in _Prague_. I hear it's a great place to hide."

The second the door shut, Charity backed away from her partner, pulling away her hiding spot, and glared at her.

Natalie, in return, beamed. "Excellent. He seems to have gotten the hint."

"Hint? More like a blasting curse straight to his gut. If you could've seen his face…he's heartbroken."

"Is his own fault," Natalie said, getting up and straightening her blouse. "I never asked for his heart."

"But why did you have to do it the way you did? Poor guy. And he brought you a gift. Don't you ever ask me to do something like that again!"

"Shh. You'll wake the bébé."

Charity scowled, but lowered her tone. "Well, why didn't you just talk to him instead of hiding like a rat?"

"Bah. Talking." The shop owner waved a dismissive hand and walked out among the sundries.

"What went wrong, anyhow? Lenny might not be my favourite person in the world, but I thought you liked him."

"Liked him? I suppose so. I was amused by him. I was entertained and gratified by him. But he wanted more than I was willing to give. There is only one boy I can commit to." She'd reached the rabbit's cage and opened it to lift the monochromatic ball of fur to her face. "How are you, mon amour?"

Natalie giggled lightly as the bunny licked her chin, and despite herself, Charity smiled. She was glad her partner had warmed to her pet and filled the gaps in attentions to the bunny now that Charity'd been understandably diverted. Natalie gave him a nuzzle and a kiss on the head before putting him back in the cage.

"I have work to do in Section M," she announced and stepped through the armour to the magical section where she wouldn't have to listen to Charity's lecture anymore.

The shop was now empty, so Charity went in back to check on Deanna and then rifle through the storage shelves for autumn powders to fill in the gaps on the displays. Once she had an armful of small glass pots, she returned to the shop and set them around, admiring the way the burnt reds and rich oranges gave the shop a more festive air.

As soon as her spirits started to lift, they sunk again at the though of Lenny. She supposed the nonchalant playboy had broken plenty of hearts himself, and had probably deserved it, but she still felt guilty for the roll she'd played in tricking him. His departure had been so pathetic. When she glanced at the door, she noticed that the sign was switched around—the portion facing inward read _Ouvert_, meaning passing customers would think the shop was closed.

"No wonder nobody's come in," she said aloud, feeling a bit less guilty as she considered that Lenny must've purposely turned the sign on his way out. She shook her head at her rabbit, joking, "I hope that treat he gave you wasn't poiso—"

She stopped mid-word when she saw the bunny lying flat on the hutch floor with his eyes bulging wide open. He wasn't moving. At all.

"Bnickel," Charity whimpered, and then with unsteady hands struggled to open the door of the cage.

Her pet was getting older, and she'd known he couldn't live forever, but this hardly looked like a natural death. More like he'd been tortured. Lenny didn't do this. She was sure of it. A prank like turning the door sign was one thing, murder quite another. Besides, he'd given the rabbit the treat before he knew Natalie was breaking it off. But if it wasn't Lenny, then—who? Charity's heart jumped as she realized someone else might've slipped into the shop while she was in back.

Her eyes flicked to the pink curtain that led to the back room. She let the cage door fall open and took two giant, hurried steps toward her baby, but she stopped dead when a dark hooded figure appeared in the drape's opening. Holding Deanna. Charity's mouth went dry.

The vacant black hole in the hood turned toward her.

"Monsieur Savu," Charity said, struggling to keep her voice steady. "I wish you would've asked permission before picking up my child. I'm sure Natalie will be returning at any moment with your prescription. So please—" She took a step forward and held her arms out, desperately hoping she was wrong about what had transpired with her rabbit.

Savu gripped the child even closer to him, cradling her in one arm. He brought his free hand up to trace a scarred fingertip over her angelic features. "She is sleeping so peacefully. Surely you don't vant to disturb her." There was no hint in his voice of the course whisper. The words rolled out of him as smoothly as a snake slithers toward its prey.

Charity felt oddly calmed by his voice, but she kept her back rigid. The sole focus of her mind was on getting her baby back. "She'll be waking at any moment, so I should take her," she said. Taking a step forward. But Savu swiped his hand sideways and held it up as a sign for her to stop. Her body unwillingly complied.

"This child vill not be waking any time soon. I've seen to that."

Charity's insides raged, and she wanted to lunge at him, but it was as if a cubic ton of sand had been poured into her feet, and she couldn't move. Her next instinct was to scream, but she could see that her baby was still breathing and didn't want to startle the child awake. She didn't want Deanna to ever realize she was being held by that…that monster. Whatever Mr. Savu was, he was not human, and he was obviously exerting his supernatural powers on both her and her child. She glanced to the right at Natalie—did _she_ know what Mr. Savu was; would she know how to deal with him?

"Natalie! Natalie! Hurry!" She'd have to risk waking the baby. She didn't see any other way. Her voice would carry through the armoire's opening into the Magical section, and Natalie would come.

Savu chuckled. "You take me for a simpleton, do you? You may have tricked me once. But not again. I have closed the door to the cabinet. She cannot hear you. No, I'm afraid this time you vill not get away."

Charity turned all her attention back to him. "Wh—who are you?"

"You hurt my feelings. Do you not remember the vonderful day we two had together? Two springs ago in Paris?"

He pulled back his hood, and Charity's stomach lurched with nausea. Half the man's hair was gone, revealing a red and mottled scalp between tufts of jet black hair. Ropey flesh ran from one jaw, up over his cheekbone and nose, twisting at his brow. These mutated features had once been elegant, as evidenced by the side of his face that was untouched. His black eyes were still clear and nearly as mesmerizing as Charity had found them the day they'd met.

"Alin," was all she said.

"Ah, see, you do remember. You have no idea how elated I was to see you again. Fate it would seem brought us back together. But to find you with child…well, this was better than I could have imagined. Almost worth the pain, near starvation, and loneliness I endured these many months. But I vill not be alone anymore." He bent his head and laid a scarred kiss on Deanna's forehead.

Charity contracted her throat to keep down the bile.

"To receive a magical child as my retribution for what you've done to me…it is beyond anything I could have hoped. You did not tell me you were a witch at our first meeting."

"She hasn't shown any signs of magical ability—she's too young. She could be a squib." It was the only out Charity saw right now.

"That is a possiblility. But I do not intend to carry her around for the rest of my existence, so I vill not change her now. She'll grow to be a child of, oh, ten or so, and when she shows her abilities, but before she has mastered them, that is when I vill make her like me, immortal.

"No," Charity hissed.

He smiled ever-so-pleasantly. "By then my looks will have been restored, thanks to your friend's creams, and there vill be no telling what the duo of handsome _father_ and darling, multi-talented _daughter_ might accomplish."

"Do you really think Natalie's going to continue to help you after you kidnap my daughter?" Charity spat, grasping for hope, anything that might change his mind and keep him from leaving.

One side of his lip raised in a sneer. "And who do you suppose vill tell her of this tragedy? You surely don't think I'll leave you behind…I do not plan on changing diapers myself."

Despite her still precarious circumstances, a wave of relieve washed through Charity. She was going to get to stay with Deanna.

"Yes, my dear, I vill take you with me—in a more obedient form."

Without Charity seeing any movement, he was immediately in front of her. "Do you accept my offer?" His breath tickled her face. She wanted to be revolted, but instead her senses were enticed by his spiced floral scent. "Take the child…or reject my offer and die right now."

Accepting meant she could stay with her daughter and possibly find a way to save her, assuming she kept any semblance of herself after the transformation. It also meant she'd never again join Snape; whereas rejecting the offer would bring her directly to him…

In the other realm, Natalie stepped over to a table a mere three feet from Charity. But the shop owner may as well have been in Siberia. She cleared the table and began a complete rearrangement. She wouldn't finish any time soon—not soon enough to save Charity from either of two terrible fates.

The invisible weight that had been immobilizing Charity's limbs lifted, allowing her just enough strength to reach for her child—which she did without hesitation. There had truthfully been no other choice to make. Yet her eyes stung with the understanding of the eternity with Snape she'd in effect given away.

The vampire licked his mutilated lips and brushed Charity's hair from her shoulder, baring her neck. The smug satisfaction in his disfigured countenance flashed to anger when the bells above the shop door jingled. He whipped Charity around and held her fast to him with one arm around her waist and the other kinked in a choke hold over her neck. She gripped Deanna tightly in both arms and stared at the unfortunate visitor. It was Lenny.

The Scottsman's eyes opened wide in shock for a brief second, but he immediately recovered and flicked out his wand, holding it in the air at the ready. But he hesitated.

"So you vill not sacrifice the mother and daughter to rid France of one more vampire, eh?" Savu taunted.

The reporter's eyes narrowed and he kept his wand tensed, but Savu was right—Lenny wouldn't risk harming Charity or the baby. Charity had to get away from Savu to give Lenny a clear shot, but the monster held her tight and still exerted a measure of psychological control.

"How did you get in here?" Lenny growled.  
"The lady of the house invites me in, every month." Charity could hear the sneer in his voice. The _lady of the house _finished stacking the colorful wizard soaps and stepped toward them. It appeared they stood directly in her intended course. Savu took a step back to avoid a collision. Natalie would pass by without having any idea what was happening only inches away from her. The close call had distracted Savu just enough to ease up his control of Charity's legs, so she thrust her foot out, catching Natalie's pointed black heel. The slender woman stumbled and barely managed to catch herself on a table, sending two crystal jars crashing to the floor in the process. When she straightened herself up she cursed under her breath and took long, livid strides toward the armoire.

The moment she emerged from the magical realm, Savu hissed an incantation in a language Charity didn't understand.

A split second later, Lenny brandished his wand toward Natalie and shouted "Protego!" A thin line of bottles between Lenny and Natalie cracked and fragmented as the spell made its way to her. When it arrived, a slivery shield erupted around her, rippling at the center when the result of the vampire's incantation made contact. The shield popped back into formation, sending the spell back toward Savu and Charity.

Savu whipped his arm from around Charity's neck and held his palm out flat, rapidly muttering the indiscernible language. But he wasn't fast enough. His own curse crashed into his hand, causing his fingers to flex and crumple like a dying spider. Savu let out a low, hideous groan and slumped forward onto Charity. His arm around her waist went limp, and all his hold over her released so that she was able to step forward and let him thud to the ground.

Deanna woke immediately and started crying and squirming in Charity's deathgrip.

"Oh!" Charity sobbed, elated and relieved to hear her baby's voice. She turned Deanna upright to hug her, but didn't relax her grasp one iota.

Lenny tipped over a Louis XVI writing table, disregarding the bottles that smashed to the floor as a result, and snapped off a thin leg, leaving a sharp point at the raw end.

"Hey!" Natalie protested, still encased in the translucent silver shield.

Lenny ignored her and stepped over to Charity. "He'll be reviving any minute now. Care to do the honors?" He held the newly-created wooden stake out to Charity, who'd managed to calm her child's cries despite the shakiness of her own nerves.

"I…are we allowed? Isn't there something against that in the Guidelines for the Treatment of Non-Wizard Part Humans?"

"Ugh, you British. Always so concerned with decorum," Natalie complained.

Savu shuddered with a labored gasp, and Charity shot a panicked look at Lenny. "Do it now. Kill the bloody wanker!" she shouted.

"As you wish, my love." He held the post up over his shoulder with one hand, javelin-style, and rushed the vampire, driving the stake deep into its heart and sending a fountain of blood out of its chest.

Natalie let out a soft moan when the thick crimson spilled over to stain her rich, grey carpeting. "One of my best customers too," she lamented.

Charity cradled her baby's head in the crook of her neck and peered at her partner. The woman had knowingly aided a vampire and invited him into the shop—and never once warned Charity. Even now, when it should be very obvious what he'd try to do, she was thinking about business first. Charity wasn't sure how she'd ever come to align herself with such a person. And that's not to mention how dismally Natalie had treated Lenny. And dragged Charity into it.

Charity turned cautiously to Lenny, who stood breathing heavily over the re-corpsified cadaver.

"Thank you. I don't know how I can ever repay you. You saved my daughter. And after how I acted before…I'm so sorry."

Lenny shrugged and flipped his head to toss his long bangs out of his eyes. His typically lazy smile had a new energy now. He was invigorated by the victory.

"Why did you come back, anyway?" Charity asked.

His eyes flicked toward Natalie and then back to Charity. Natalie stood with a hand on her hip and a raised eyebrow—she too seemed curious for the answer.

"She's obviously done with me. So I was going to ask if you wanted to have a go."

Charity felt her overabundant goodwill toward him settle back toward mild irritation. "I'm…uh…not dating right now," she answered absently as her attention was caught by a flash of black and white at the front of the store. Another of Savu's victims had reanimated and now scurried across the shop to sniff at the shield covering Natalie.

.

.

**Author's Note:**

And so we find the mystery behind Savu. With that secret revealed, this story will go on hiatus for a few months. Pulling off what I hope to accomplish with what remains of New Prince is is going to be tricky, and I think we'll all be better off if I can hammer out a completed first draft before I begin posting again. And before that can happen, I've got some other projects calling for my attention. :/

Before I step entirely away from FF for a wHile, I'll be posting a final finale to my Survivor: Vampire Island story, in which we have some fun w/ Cullens. :) Is going to be good.

And lastly, I want to give a shout out to Metropolis Kid, whose been my inspiration to even get this far in this story. Thanks, peach. ;) If you enjoy Hellsing, Star Wars (KOTOR), Chuck, or just good stories in general, you should check out his profile - he's got two awesome stories at the top that are currently being updated. Also, if you're a Chuck fan, look for a link on Metropolis Kid's profile where you can "Like" a facebook page that might help the show stick around for a 5th season.

Thanks for reading, thanks for reviewing!

-Lila


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